Writing documentation for AI: best practices
36 comments
·June 18, 2025emil_sorensen
OP here. It's kind of ironic that making the docs AI-friendly essentially just ends up being what good documentation is in the first place (explicit context and hierarchy, self-contained sections, precise error messages).
shafyy
It's the same for SEO also. Good structure, correct use of HTML elements, quick loading, good accessibility, etc. Sure, there are "tricks" to improve your SEO, but the general principles are also good if you were not doing SEO.
jilles
It's similar for writing code. Suddenly people are articulating their problems to the LLM and breaking it down in smaller sub-problems to solve....
arscan
In other words, people are discovering the value of standard software engineering practices. Which, I think is a good thing.
corysama
It has changed how I structure my code. Out of laziness, if I can write the code in such a way that each step follows naturally from what came before, "the code just writes itself!" Except now it's literally true :D
bobbiechen
Related: "If an AI agent can't figure out how your API works, neither can your users" (from my employer's blog)
https://stytch.com/blog/if-an-ai-agent-cant-figure-out-how-y...
thom
Yeah, I've started to think AI smoke tests for cognitive complexity should be a fundamental part of API/schema design now. Even if you think the LLMs are dumb, Stupidity as a Service is genuinely useful.
drusepth
This is also the hilarious part of "prompt engineering".
It's just effective linguistics and speech; what people have called "soft skills" forever is now, obviously, trying to be a science for some reason.
ketzo
A really effective prompt is created by developing an accurate “mental model” of the model, understanding what tools it does and doesn’t have access to, what gives it effective direction and what leads it astray
Otherwise known as empathy
QRY
Thank you for sharing this, it's really helpful to have this as top-down learning resource.
I'm in the process of learning how to work with AI, and I've been homebrewing something similar with local semantic search for technical content (embedding models via Ollama, ChromaDB for indexing). I'm currently stuck at the step of making unstructured knowledge queryable, so these docs will come in handy for sure. Thanks again!
esafak
Now people just have a better incentive :)
mooreds
"GEO[0] has entered the chat."
We see a surprising number of folks who discover our product from GenAI solutions (self-reported). I'm not aware of any great tools that help you dissect this, but I'm sure someone is working on them.
0: Generative Engine Optimization
theletterf
Don't fall into the trap of the new SEO for AIs. LLM are just like users. https://passo.uno/writing-for-llms-ai-chatbots/
steveklabnik
Most of the things described in this document are also good for humans. The justification is different, but the result is the same.
pixl97
Or as I like to say, if current AI cannot explain your documentation well, then it's very likely humans can't either, your documentation sucks.
andy99
As soon as some widget in the corner of a site wiggles to get my attention, I leave. If you/they want people to actually read their articles they shouldn't try to distract readers as soon as they start.
reaperducer
As soon as some widget in the corner of a site wiggles to get my attention, I leave.
Here's a bookmarklet I found on HN years and years ago. I have it bound to a hot key so whenever a web site does something stupid like that, I can dismiss it with a keystroke.
Works about 90% of the time, and doesn't require any installation of anything.
javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
andy99
Thanks! I do have ublock origin and can typically get rid of these if I need to. It's just the frustration of going to websites that ostensibly want me to read something that see fit to destroy my focus as soon as I try to start.
remram
AI will make it easy to get your documentation up for your users!
> Step one, write the documentation yourself.
> Step two, bots hit your website hundreds of times per minute.
> Step three, users never come to your site, they use OpenAI's site.
> Step four, ??? openAI profits
nlarew
If your software business relies on people coming to your site to read docs then you were cooked from the start. It's about enabling your users whether they're on your site, ChatGPT, or anywhere else.
namuol
Good docs don’t fix bad apps or APIs though. I get the sense that demand for docs is a signal that there’s a deeper problem with DX. Good docs generally only exist in places where they’ve given the rest of the DX enough love in the first place, so it’s more of a mark of quality than a means to quality.
gmd63
Yes, and creating documentation is an exercise in understanding the whole experience. Often, nobody on the team truly gets it.
wiremine
A bit off topic, but I've been finding myself write "plan.txt" files for claude code.
1. Write plan 2. Ask Claude to review for understandability 3. Update as needed until it's clear 4. Execute the task(s) in the plan.
I'm finding Claude gets much further on the first pass. And I can version the plans.
intellectronica
Excellent advice. Good documentation makes a huge difference in AI-assisted software development.
MK_Dev
How do you turn off dark mode on that site? Hurts my eyes
emil_sorensen
Thanks for the feedback. We should definitely add that. :)
retsibsi
In Firefox, Reader View (F9) seems to handle it well.
basisword
I wish companies would invest more in docs. It's too hard to keep the quality high if it's just another thing for engineers to do. I've seen too many cases where a small group invests lots of time and effort bringing the docs up to standard and then another person or group comes along and starts dragging down the quality because they can't be bothered taking to time to see how and where their information fits and ensuring the formatting and styles are maintained.
Eventually the quality drops to such a level that some poor bastard spends their time bringing it all back up to standard - and the cycle repeats.
simonw
The most important characteristic of any internal documentation is trust. People need to trust it. If they trust it, they'll both read it and contribute to it. If they don't trust it they'll ignore it and leave it to rot.
Gaining that trust is really hard. The documentation needs to be safe to read, in that it won't mislead you and feed you stale information - the moment that happens, people lose trust in it.
Because the standard of internal docs at most companies is so low, employees will default to not trusting it. They have to be won over! That takes a lot of dedicated work, both in getting the documentation to a useful state and promoting it so people give it a chance.
croes
I thought one of the use cases of AI is to write documentation? And I thought AI adapts to humans, now it seems the other way around
svachalek
AI doesn't adapt to anything. Training creates a fixed model that doesn't change until you replace it.
AvAn12
Makes web scraping easier too.
Assuming the app in question is open source, which certainly not all of them are, why would the AI read the docs, if it can read the source?