Ask HN: How do you keep your codebase knowledge in your team? - mlejva
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mlejva
Hi, OP here.

I'd like to explain the question a little bit. In our team, we are trying to
create something we call "codebase knowledge". It's anything related to our
code and technological solution that is important to know through the team.
For example specific algorithms we're using and why, platform-specific
decisions and caveats, or just simple explanation of how some internal API
works.

I wonder, do you keep the same knowledge in your team? If so, where do you
keep it and what software do you use?

Our problem is that currently, this knowledge is spread across Google Docs,
Slack, readmes, code comments, or sometimes it's just vocal...

How do you solve this issue?

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flattenedbybus
Good old Word documents work well for this along with comments in the code,
which reference these documents.

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mlejva
How often do you write/update such documents in your team?

If you do it the way you described, isn't it hard to search for some specific
knowledge?

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flattenedbybus
We write and update these documents when needed (this usually means when
something has changed in the code) and when knowledge is fresh in people's
mind.

If documents are referenced in the code it is straightforward to find them
when needed. We also have documents to capture general architecture, which
obviously help devs finding their way around the codebase.

