Living Documentation

A tool that links documentation to code so it stays up to date. When function signatures, APIs, or arguments change, the system marks related documentation paragraphs as "possibly outdated" and suggests what to fix.

Goals

• Code ↔ doc linking: explicit mapping between code entities (functions, classes, APIs) and documentation fragments
• Freshness checking: after code changes — mark outdated sections and suggest updates
• Contextual view (planned): show the relevant doc fragment in the IDE when hovering over a function or method call
• Docs next to code: store documentation in the repository and view it as a site with navigation and search

Where to Start (recommendation)

Recommended order:

1. Code ↔ documentation mapping format — without it, you can't unambiguously link a doc paragraph to a code entity. Define this first.
2. Repository structure and stack — one language for MVP (Python), shared architecture for future languages and IDE support.
3. Prototype on one example — one module, one doc page, code parser, and a check that "the document is outdated after a code change."

In short: first the format and structure, then a minimal prototype.

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────────┐
│  Code parser    │────▶│  Link graph      │◀────│  Doc parser         │
│  (AST / API)    │     │  (code_id ↔ doc) │     │  (markdown + anchors)│
└────────┬────────┘     └────────┬──────────┘     └─────────────────────┘
         │                      │
         ▼                      ▼
┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐
│  Change         │     │  Report / site   │
│  detector       │────▶│  "outdated" +    │
│  (diff / hash)  │     │  suggestions     │
└─────────────────┘     └──────────────────┘

• Code parser: extracts signatures (name, arguments, types) and unique identifiers (e.g., module.function or file:line).
• Doc parser: parses Markdown with explicit anchors (see spec/code-doc-mapping.md), associating paragraphs/blocks with code_id.
• Link graph: stores (code_id, doc_fragment_id) pairs. When code changes (new signature/hash), related fragments are marked as "possibly outdated."
• Change detector: compares current code state (signatures/hashes) with the last saved state.

Extensibility: code and doc parsers are per-language plugins; the graph and report are shared.

Documentation Format

• Primary format: Markdown in the repository (e.g., a docs/ folder or next to modules).
• Linking to code: anchors in Markdown (see spec/code-doc-mapping.md), optionally plus annotations in code (docstring tags) that reference a fragment id.
• Site: generate a static site (MkDocs, Docusaurus, or custom) from the same Markdown files; navigation and search on top of the generated site.

MVP (First Iteration)

• Language: Python
• Features:
  • Parse modules (functions, methods, signatures)
  • One documentation page with anchors to those entities
  • Check: when a signature changes in code, the related doc paragraph is marked as outdated
• Extensibility: abstractions for the code parser and anchor format to support more languages and IDE integration later.

Repository Structure

LiveDoc/
├── README.md                 # this file
├── spec/
│   └── code-doc-mapping.md  # anchor format and code↔doc mapping
├── src/
│   └── livedoc/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── core/            # link graph, change detector
│       ├── parsers/         # Python code parser, doc parser
│       └── report/          # "outdated" report, future site generation
├── tests/
├── examples/                # sample project for testing MVP
│   ├── sample_module/
│   └── docs/
└── pyproject.toml

Quick Start (Add to Your Project)

1. Install: pip install living-doc (or pip install -e . from this repo)

2. Create docs in docs/ with anchors linking to code:

   <!-- livedoc: code_id = "mymodule.calc:add" -->
   ## add
   Adds two numbers.

3. First run (saves code signatures):

   python -m livedoc --docs docs

4. CI: Add to your workflow:

   - run: pip install living-doc && python -m livedoc --docs docs

5. Optional: Add .livedocignore in project root (one pattern per line) to exclude paths:

   build
   scripts
   

Running the MVP (This Repo)

# Install (optional, for livedoc command)
pip install -e .

# Check links and freshness for the example (from repo root)
python -m livedoc examples --docs docs

# First run saves code signatures to examples/.livedoc/code_signatures.json.
# After changing a function/method signature, the next run will show
# related doc fragments as "possibly outdated" with a diff of old vs new signature.
# To update signatures after editing docs: --update

# Options:
#   --ignore PATTERN   Exclude paths (e.g. --ignore mytests, can be repeated)
#   --format json      Machine-readable output for CI/scripts
#   .livedocignore     File with ignore patterns (one per line)

CI (GitHub Actions)

The workflow .github/workflows/livedoc.yml runs livedoc check on push and pull requests. The examples/.livedoc folder with signatures is committed so CI has a baseline. If code changes without updating docs or without --update, the job fails.

Publishing to PyPI

pip install build twine
python -m build
python -m twine upload dist/*

Requires a PyPI account and token. Use __token__ as username and your API token as password.

Next Steps

• Add parsers for other languages in parsers/
• IDE integration: LSP or extension (show docs on hover)
• Generate and serve a documentation site with "outdated" highlights