Doclific
Documentation that lives with your code
142 followers
Documentation that lives with your code
142 followers
Most documentation tools live outside your repository. Your code changes. Your docs don’t. Drift is inevitable. Doclific addresses this problem in two ways: 1. Your docs all live in one place: your repo. This is the way it should be, ensuring engineers always have access to the correct version of docs. 2. Doclific features ERDs, architecture diagrams, smart snippets, etc. No more context switching. No more drift. Oh, and if you're lazy, you can just prompt the AI to generate docs for you!
Doclific
This project originated from a real need. Internal documentation is almost always either outdated or in a poor format (KT sessions, spread out over several Google Docs + Lucid Charts, etc). I aim for Doclific to be a free, all-in-one solution to this problem.
Please, be brutally honest, would you use this? What other challenges do you encounter with documenting currently?
It’s not really an all-in-one solution for big projects, but it still makes sense and helps with a lot. I usually keep my docs as markdown inside the project, so being able to visually take docs right there is super useful. I also love the db relation view and the whiteboard features, I normally use random sites for that, take screenshots, and add them to docs. Having it built in is really nice.
Doclific
@joeltom_p_t totally fair — not an all-in-one solution yet. Internal documentation options are so limited and require constant context switching, so I addressed that first.
Doclific
@joeltom_p_t if you have any idea for future enhancements, definitely throw them out there
This could easily become a staple in my toolkit.
Doclific
@brent_kom3344 glad to hear! What are you currently using for documentation?
The 'Docs as Code' approach is the only way to truly fight drift. Keeping docs in the repo ensures they undergo the same PR process as the code, which is a massive win for consistency. You asked for honesty: I’d definitely use this if it replaces the nightmare of syncing Notion/Confluence with GitHub. My question: (1) Since the docs live in the repo, how does Doclific handle non-technical stakeholders (like PMs) who might need to read or edit the docs without diving into the codebase? (2) Are these diagrams stored as code-based definitions so they are version-controlled, or are they handled differently? When code changes significantly, does Doclific have a 'check' or 'alert' system to remind engineers that a specific doc or snippet might now be 'drifting' and needs a re-prompt?
Doclific
@yuanyuan_zhang0104 Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it! (1) Fantastic question and something I've been thinking about quite a bit. As Doclific currently stands, it's aimed at developers primarily. However, one of the coming stages for Doclific is the ability to host documents in the cloud as well. This would give access to non-technical stakeholders. (2) Diagrams are stored as MDX inside the repo, so they are absolutely version-controlled. Again, another fantastic question -- this drift detection is exactly where I'm going with Doclific. Imagine a CI stage that checks if any of the documented code has changed since the last run. If the change is a simple addition or subtraction of a non-referenced section, it adjusts automatically. If referenced code changes, it either gives a warning or the stage fails. THIS is the next phase for Doclific and what I'm working on currently. Really appreciate the feedback and questions!
Doclific
@rachelz1 Thank you! Let me know what you think!
Docs-in-repo is the right call, but at scale the hard part is drift detection across monorepos where refactors and renames silently break code-linked snippets and diagrams.
Best practice is a CI gate that resolves references via AST/symbol IDs (not just file paths), runs link checks, and posts PR annotations with suggested doc patches plus a fail threshold you can tune per directory.
How are you extracting and versioning “smart snippets” (tree-sitter/TS compiler API, etc.), and can Doclific auto-open a PR with regenerated MDX when referenced symbols change?
Doclific
@ryan_thill Hi Ryan, fantastic insight! I really appreciate it. I’ll be honest, a lot of what you’re referencing are future enhancements, but you definitely brought some interesting concepts to my attention. I have some ideas on creating a TRULY smart snippet, but I’m leaning more towards it behaving identically to git, instead of attempting to make it too smart that it tries references changed or altered snippets where the explanations would also need to be adjusted as well. I plan to relaunch once the CI-based functionality is fully finished. Stay tuned!
Woah, congrats man. This is awesome. I am so intrigued to play with this. We've been doing lots of work with docs lately
Doclific
@campak thanks, really appreciate it!
If this is true auto curation of documentation then it will be awesome. Documentation has become so much more important in the age of AI Agents as a means of keeping them grounded in the reality of the codebase that they work within.