docs-onboarding/documentation-guidelines.md

# Documentation Guidelines

Best practices and guidelines for writing code documentation.

## Formats

All documentation should be easy maintain and accessible. Easy formats should be preffered over more complex ones.

## PlantUML

Create png images from PlantUML files using the following command:

```bash
plantuml -tpng <file>.puml
```

## Draw.io Diagrams

Ensure to have the draw.io application aliased. This example is for a macOS based system configured with ansible:

```yaml
- name: Add Draw.io alias to .zshrc
  lineinfile:
    path: "/Users/{{ macos_user }}/.zshrc"
    line: "alias drawio='/Applications/draw.io.app/Contents/MacOS/draw.io'"
    state: present
```

Create png images from Draw.io diagrams using the following command.

```bash
drawio -x -f png -b 10 -o <output>.png <file>.drawio
```

## Folder Structure

If you want to add an optional folder structure to your documentation, you can use the following command to generate a tree-like structure.

```bash
find . -type d ! -path '*/.*' | sed -e "s/[^-][^\/]*\// |/g" -e "s/|\([^ ]\)/|-\1/"
```

Example output:

```text
 |-resources
 | |-images
 | |-diagrams
 | |-scripts
 |-know-how
```