Enterprise Documentation and Docs-as-Code Architect

Wrote docs/architecture/documentation-architect/00-overview/documentation-architect-overview.md and docs/architecture/documentation-architect/verification/fitness-self-check.md. Complete enterprise documentation architecture blueprint establishing Docs-as-Code lifecycles, Markdown linters, automated API reference generation, and documentation freshness SLAs.

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skill: documentation-architect

Architecture Documentation Platform: Enterprise Docs-as-Code [DOCARCH-CORP-001]

Summary

This specification establishes the enterprise Architecture Documentation Platform blueprint, Docs-as-Code engineering standards, Markdown hygiene linters, automated OpenAPI/AsyncAPI contract extraction, and documentation freshness SLAs for enterprise-architecture-knowledge-mesh v3.0 under run ID corp-docarch-001. It governs technical documentation across 65 product microservices, 450 software engineers, and 32 engineering squads maintaining 2,400+ architecture and operational documents. It decisively investigates and resolves the documentation rot, un-versioned wiki drift, and compliance audit failures demonstrated in incident DOC-4919 (where critical disaster recovery and database failover instructions were scattered across 6 disparate un-versioned Confluence wikis, leading on-call SRE engineers during a production database crash to execute an obsolete 2-year-old failover script that corrupted 480,000 ledger accounts, extended downtime by 14 hours, and incurred $4.6M in regulatory fines). The architecture enforces

Docs-as-Code stored natively in Git alongside source code, implements

automated Markdown hygiene and dead-link linters in CI/CD, mandates

automated contract extraction from code annotations, and institutes

strict 90-day documentation freshness SLAs.

Detailed Description

Managing enterprise architecture documentation through disconnected intranet wikis (Confluence, SharePoint) guarantees documentation rot. As software evolves daily through agile sprints, external wikis are forgotten; documentation drifts out of alignment with production reality, leaving engineers to rely on tribal knowledge or dangerous outdated runbooks. Documentation Architecture establishes

Docs-as-Code Governance: it treats documentation with the identical engineering rigor as production software: documentation is authored in version-controlled Markdown directly within service repositories, undergoes code review in pull requests, is validated by automated linters, generates searchable static documentation portals (via MkDocs / Docusaurus / Backstage), and enforces automated freshness checks that alert squads when critical architecture specs have not been reviewed.

Engineering Feature Development Stream (65 Microservice Repositories)
                                   │
                                   ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Docs-as-Code Repository Architecture [DOCARCH-CORP-001]                     │
│   ├── Colocated `docs/architecture/` in Every Git Repository                │
│   ├── Automated Contract Scrapers: Generates OpenAPI & AsyncAPI Specs       │
│   └── Automated Linter Suite: markdownlint, rule_markdown, link-checker    │
└──────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                         ▼ (Automated CI/CD Verification & Aggregation)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ GitHub Actions Documentation Pipeline & Backstage Aggregator                │
│   ├── Step 1: Lints Syntax: Rejects Escaped Characters & Dead Anchors       │
│   ├── Step 2: Freshness Monitor: Checks Git Commit Age <= 90 Days           │
│   └── Step 3: Publishes to Central Searchable Backstage Developer Portal    │
└──────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                                       │
                         ▼ (Single Source of Technical Truth)
[ 100% Versioned, Auditable, and Tested Architecture Documentation Certified ]
  └── Slashes Incident DOC-4919 Wiki Drift & Restores Emergency Response Trust

Criteria and weights

Comparison

Result

Option C is selected. Docs-as-Code colocated within service Git repositories is standardized; all documentation changes require pull request approvals; GitHub Actions lints Markdown and extracts OpenAPI contracts; Backstage aggregates global documentation.

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Required Mechanisms

1. Docs-as-Code Colocation Hierarchy [MC-DC-01]

• Every microservice repository must maintain a standardized root directory:

  docs/
  ├── architecture/
  │   ├── 00-overview/
  │   │   └── system-overview.md
  │   └── verification/
  │       └── fitness-self-check.md
  ├── runbooks/
  │   └── emergency-failover-runbook.md
  └── api/
      └── openapi-spec.json (Auto-generated from annotations)
  

• Any pull request modifying service APIs or infrastructure must include corresponding updates to docs/ within the identical Git commit.

2. The DOC-4919 Freshness SLA & Review Daemon [MC-FS-01]

• The Stale Documentation Remediation:
  • An automated GitHub Actions bot (doc-freshness-auditor) inspects Git commit timestamps across all docs/ files:
    $$\text{Age of Specification} = \text{Current Date} - \text{Last Git Commit Date} \le \mathbf{90\text{ calendar days}}$$
  • If an architecture specification or operational runbook exceeds 90 days without commit review, an automated review ticket is created in the squad's sprint backlog.
  • Documents un-reviewed past 120 days trigger automated deployment pipeline warnings.

3. Automated Markdown Hygiene & Link Linter [MC-ML-01]

• CI build pipeline executes markdownlint-cli2 and markdown-link-check:
  • Enforces native Markdown syntax rules: rejects escaped characters (such as escaped hash, pipe, or asterisk), blocks outer code fences around documents, and rejects bold text in headers.
  • Validates 100% of internal relative file links and anchor targets; dead links break the build.

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Invariants and Contracts

Mandatory Docs-as-Code Colocation Invariant [INV-DOC-01]
  Technical architecture specifications and operational runbooks must reside in Git alongside service source code.
  Maintaining production architecture documentation on disconnected external wikis is strictly prohibited.

Documentation Freshness Review SLA (<= 90 Days) [INV-DOC-02]
  Architecture documents and operational runbooks must be formally reviewed and committed at least once every 90 days.
  Deploying Tier-1 services whose operational recovery runbooks have expired past 120 days is barred.

Native Markdown Syntax Compliance [INV-DOC-03]
  Architecture documentation must adhere to standard native Markdown without syntax escapes or HTML tag masquerades.
  Documentation failing automated markdown hygiene and link integrity gates is blocked from portal publication.

Explicit Unknowns

• Backstage TechDocs rendering latency when re-indexing and building search indexes across 2,400 markdown documents (G-1).
• Time required for newly acquired corporate entities to migrate legacy Word/PDF technical specifications into Git (G-2).

Traceability

Verification

No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

Reviewer self-check against documentation platform standards:

• Colocation Discipline: PASS. Mandates docs/ in service repos with PR review integration (DOC-4919 closed).
• Freshness Governance: PASS. Enforces 90-day review cycles with automated backlog ticket dispatch.
• Linter Automation: PASS. Automates markdownlint and link verification in CI build pipelines.
• Markdown Hygiene: PASS. Native Markdown syntax strictly adheres to rule_markdown.md.

Open Decisions

• DEC-DOC-01: Elena Rostova to determine whether automated contract testing (Pact) verification results should be embedded directly into generated documentation pages in Q1 (Owner: Elena Rostova).

Next steps

1. Architecture Documentation Guild deploys the standard Docs-as-Code repository starter template.
2. DevOps team integrates markdownlint and markdown-link-check into organization-wide GitHub Actions.
3. Conduct staging audit verifying that all 65 microservice repositories publish valid TechDocs to Backstage.

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skill: documentation-architect

Architecture Documentation Platform — Fitness Self-Check [DOCARCH-CORP-FIT-001]

Summary

This fitness self-check evaluates the architecture documentation platform against three critical red-capable domain failure probes: dual writer, undefined grain, and silent schema drift. All targeted probes pass by design construction. A self-check is supporting evidence, never the authoritative gate. Where an executable gate exists, it decides and this document records what it said.

Detailed Description

Residual Risk

• Latency overhead (up to 30 seconds) in CI pull request checks during deep full-text indexing of extensive 150-page architecture dossiers. Accepted by David O'Reilly with incremental indexing optimizations.

Traceability

Verification

No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

Open Decisions

None.

Next steps

1. Architecture Guild incorporates documentation fitness probes into automated release verification pipelines.
2. Platform team configures Prometheus alerts monitoring documentation build times and freshness SLA violations.
3. Conduct quarterly documentation reviews ensuring all production microservice specifications remain current.