Documentation Pro RSS
Documentation Pro RSS: describe a dependable feed contract
Good feed documentation explains what a subscriber receives, what a developer can rely on, and how a maintainer handles change. Build the reference around a real publishing contract: stable addresses, explicit field meanings, representative examples, and an owner for each important decision.
Start with the public promise
Describe the feed's audience, scope, format, and history window in plain language. State whether entries contain complete articles or summaries and whether the collection includes substantial page updates. Identify the canonical subscription address and the website it represents. A new maintainer should understand the output without opening a generator or guessing which internal folder is published.
Map fields to editorial records
Create a short reference for identifiers, titles, article addresses, publication dates, content, and optional metadata. For every field, name its source and explain what an absent value means. Keep publication, modification, and retrieval times separate. Record whether an item identifier survives a title correction or an address change. These definitions prevent consumers from depending on accidental behavior.
- Identity: explain the stable item key and how migrations preserve it across releases.
- Content: describe supported markup and how essential images or code examples are represented.
- Dates: identify the underlying editorial event and the timezone policy used when serializing it.
- Failures: explain how maintainers recognize an invalid build and recover the previous valid output.
Use examples that expose decisions
Include a short announcement, a longer illustrated article, and an updated entry. Show the relevant source record beside its serialized output, with explanatory labels. Make examples small enough to compare by eye. An opaque identifier, an ampersand in a title, and a missing optional field reveal more about the contract than several nearly identical polished examples.
Keep credentials, private subscription addresses, and unpublished content out of the reference. Use clearly illustrative records when a real example contains information that should remain private. Tell readers which details are examples and which are mandatory properties of the feed.
Maintain a useful change record
Distinguish an additive metadata field from a change that alters an existing field's meaning. Document a transition before consumers need to react, and retain the previous example when it helps explain the difference. Finish the reference with a compact release checklist: validate XML, compare identity, verify addresses, inspect content, and record the review. Documentation becomes valuable when it stays close to ordinary publishing work.
Primary documentation
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