Announcing Templates release 1.0 (Capilano)

Alyssa Rock  — Tech writer. OSS community manager. DocOps enthusiast.
Jun 15, 2023, updated Jun 15, 2023 478 words

The Capilano release introduces updates to existing templates, three brand new templates and a new feature, template packs! We also share more community news.

The Good Docs Project just published our latest release of documentation templates! This version 1.0 is a huge milestone for us as it represents the first major release of our templates suite. The release is codenamed Capilano, in keeping with our tradition of codenaming releases after bridges. The Capilano release is named for the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Canada.

The Capilano release introduces a new feature: template packs! A template pack is a collection of templates organized together by: * Common use cases or tasks. * Needs of particular audiences or stakeholders. * Popular or notable documentation frameworks. * Maturity models for documentation.

In this release, we are introducing three new template packs:

  • Core documentation pack - The core documentation pack is our flagship template pack and it includes the core, fundamental content types that every documentation project needs. If you download one template pack for your project, it should be this one. It includes: ​

    • How-to

    • Explanation (concept)

    • README

    • Reference

    • Release notes

    • Tutorial

  • Open source community docs pack - The open source community docs template pack includes the fundamental content types that every open source project needs to have a healthy and productive community. It includes:

    • Bug report

    • Code of Conduct

    • Contributing guide

    • Our team

    • README

  • Day 2 documentation template pack - On day 1 when you’ve incorporated the Core documentation pack and set up your initial documentation, you might then need additional templates for your specific use cases on day 2. These templates will help you as your documentation project matures. It includes:

    • API quickstart

    • API reference

    • Logging

    • Installation guide

    • Overview

    • Quickstart

    • Style guide

This release also features three brand new templates:

  • Bug report - The bug report is an issue template that your users can fill out to provide you with higher-quality, actionable bug issues for your product.

  • Contributing guide - Contributing guides explain how new users can contribute to your open source project and join the community.

  • Installation guide - This template helps explain all the necessary steps to install a product and help users get a faster time to value.

We also improved the following templates in the suite:

  • API reference - Includes an example of this template in action for the Chronologue API, a mock tool that our project uses to showcase our templates in action.

  • Contributing guide - Includes an example of a Contributing guide for Chronologue documentation contributors.

  • README - Includes an example of a README for the Chronologue documentation project.

  • Release notes - Includes release notes for the latest version of the Chronologue tool.

A huge thank-you to all our template contributors! You can read more about the contents of this release and the contributors involved in our release notes in GitLab.


Image of Alyssa Rock
Connect with Alyssa on LinkedIn.