Absolute Docs

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Absolute Documentations: Diátaxis-Driven Documentation

Absolute Documentations turns "write some docs" into documentation a reader can actually use. Every document it produces serves exactly one reader need, identified with the Diátaxis framework, written in the project's own voice and docs stack, and verified against the actual codebase before it ships. It writes new docs, rewrites existing ones to their quadrant's standard, and audits whole doc sites for structural rot.

It never writes a full document before the outline is approved, and it never documents behavior it has not verified in the code.

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The Diátaxis Compass

Every piece of documentation answers exactly one kind of reader need. Classify before writing — a page that mixes quadrants serves nobody.

To classify, ask two questions:

1. Is the reader studying (acquiring skill) or working (applying skill)?
2. Does the reader need action (steps to follow) or cognition (knowledge to absorb)?

The cardinal sin is mixing. A tutorial that stops to explain architecture loses the learner. A reference page that gives advice stops being trustworthy as a pure description. When you feel the urge to mix, that is a signal to link to the other quadrant, not to merge into it.

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Modes

Detect the mode from the request:

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WRITE Mode

Step 1 — Recon (codebase first, questions second)

Before asking the user anything, learn everything the repo can teach:

• Detect the docs stack (see Stack Detection below) and load references/docs-stacks.md if writing site pages.
• Read existing docs — tone, terminology, heading style, frontmatter schema, sidebar/nav structure, where each quadrant lives.
• Read the code being documented — public API surface, actual option names, actual defaults, actual error messages. The code is the source of truth, not your memory of similar tools.
• Check project metadata — package.json/pyproject/go.mod for the real name, version, install command, supported runtimes.

Step 2 — Intake

Four things must be pinned down before any outline. Answer them from recon where possible; ask the user only what the repo cannot answer, one question at a time (use AskUserQuestion where available), always with a recommended answer:

1. Document type — which Diátaxis quadrant (or which developer-doc form).
2. Target audience — novice end user? experienced operator? contributor? What can you assume they already know?
3. Reader's goal — what will the reader be able to do after reading?
4. Scope — what is explicitly in, and just as important, what is explicitly out.

Step 3 — Outline gate (hard gate)

Propose, before writing any prose:

• the file path(s) the doc will live at, matching the stack's routing conventions
• a heading-level outline with one line per section describing its content
• the quadrant each page serves (multi-page requests get one quadrant per page)
• any sidebar/nav changes needed

STOP and wait for explicit approval. Do not write the document until the user confirms the outline. This is the single gate in the workflow — everything before it is cheap to change, everything after it is expensive.

Step 4 — Write

• Follow the per-quadrant playbook in references/ (load the matching file).
• Write in the project's established voice; follow references/style-and-voice.md.
• Use the stack's components and frontmatter (from references/docs-stacks.md); plain Markdown when no stack is detected.
• Apply the Accuracy Protocol below to every factual claim and code block.

Step 5 — Self-review

Score the draft against the rubric below. Fix anything scoring under 4 before presenting. Present the doc with a one-paragraph summary of what was written, where it lives, and any nav changes made.

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IMPROVE Mode

For "fix this README" / "improve this page":

1. Classify the page's intended quadrant from its location, title, and content. If it serves two masters, say so — that is usually the root problem.
2. Diff against the quadrant's standard (load its reference playbook). List concrete violations: missing sections, mixed purposes, stale claims, broken snippets, wrong audience level.
3. Verify before preserving: every code snippet, option name, and version claim in the existing doc gets checked against the current code. Stale facts are the most common defect in old docs.
4. Rewrite preserving everything accurate and project-specific. Do not bleach the project's voice into generic doc-speak.
5. Single-page improvements need no gate. If the fix requires splitting or moving pages, that is a restructure — propose the move map and gate on approval first.

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AUDIT Mode

For "our docs are a mess" / "audit the documentation":

1. Inventory — list every docs page (site pages, README, docs/ folder) with path and title.
2. Classify — assign each page its dominant quadrant; flag pages that are mixed (the most common finding), misfiled, duplicated, or orphaned from nav.
3. Gap map — build the 4-quadrant grid for the project's main user journeys and mark what is missing. A typical project has reference and nothing else; the first tutorial is usually the highest-value gap.
4. Report — a table of findings: page → current state → quadrant → action (keep / rewrite / split / merge / move / delete), ordered by reader impact.
5. Gate — restructuring moves files and breaks links. Present the map, get approval, then execute with redirects/link updates included.

The audit deliverable is the report and map. Executing it is a follow-up the user approves explicitly.

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Stack Detection

Read cached config first: if .absolute.config.json or ~/.absolute/config.json exists (from /absolute init), resolve the effective config (project file → global projects["<cwd>"] → global defaults) and use conventions.docs.stack + conventions.docs.dir — skip the marker-file scan and write pages under docs.dir. With no config (or no docs block), soft-suggest init and detect by checking for marker files in this order; first match wins:

Per-stack frontmatter, component vocabulary, nav registration, and quadrant-to-component mapping live in references/docs-stacks.md — load it whenever writing pages for a detected stack. Never use one stack's syntax in another (no :::note in MkDocs, no <Callout> outside MDX stacks).

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Quadrant Rules at a Glance

Full playbooks with templates live in references/. The non-negotiables:

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