The-Documentation-Compendium
📢 Various README templates & tips on writing high-quality documentation that people want to read.
A collection of copy-paste templates and plain-English writing advice for README files, changelogs, contributing guides, and other standard open-source docs.
The Documentation Compendium is a collection of ready-to-use templates and written advice for anyone who wants to write better documentation for a software project. The repository does not contain code. Instead, it contains Markdown files you can copy into your own projects as starting points for things like README files, pull request descriptions, issue report formats, contributing guides, changelogs, and codes of conduct.
Alongside the templates, the repository includes a section on best practices for writing documentation. The advice covers tone (keep it friendly and assume the reader is new to the topic), structure (use headings often, keep explanations short, show examples rather than just describing things), and a list of things to avoid (idioms, assumed prior knowledge, and terms that exclude any group of readers). There is also a short case for why documentation matters at all, pointing out that even useful software goes unused when it is hard to understand.
The repository links out to external resources on technical writing, including guides from the Write the Docs community, Google's developer documentation style guide, and several blog posts from working technical writers. There are also pointers to formal programs like Google Season of Docs for anyone who wants to contribute documentation to open-source projects as a volunteer.
The templates are organized in an English subfolder and cover most of the standard files you would find in a well-maintained open-source project. The project itself is released under the CC0 license, which places the contents in the public domain, so you can use any template without attribution.
Where it fits
- Copy a ready-made README template into your project and fill in the blanks instead of starting from scratch.
- Use the contributing guide template to set clear expectations for people who want to submit pull requests.
- Apply the writing advice to improve tone and clarity in existing documentation, shorter sentences, more examples, less jargon.
- Browse linked resources from Write the Docs and Google to learn professional technical writing practices.