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Documentation Guidelines

Marta edited this page Jun 8, 2026 · 2 revisions

Documentation Guidelines

Purpose

WebKit maintains three official documentation surfaces. This document defines the purpose, audience, and ownership of each surface, and provides selection criteria to help contributors place new content in the correct location.

At a glance: GitHub Wiki = how we work · docs.webkit.org = how WebKit works · webkit.org = what WebKit is

Sources

Property webkit.org docs.webkit.org GitHub Wiki
Purpose Public-facing project surface Canonical technical reference Operational knowledge
Primary audience Web developers, community, external stakeholders WebKit engineers and integrators Active contributors
Content type News, project policy, feature and standards status, community resources Architecture, design documents, contribution overview Workflows, coding guidelines, port-specific notes, frequently-changing content
Update process Pull request + review Pull request + peer review Direct edit by trusted contributors
Stability Curated and editorial Stable and versioned Living and informal

Selection Criteria

When deciding where to publish new content, evaluate the following questions in order. Stop at the first affirmative answer.

  1. Is the content public-facing? Is it intended for web developers, the broader community, or does it convey project-level policy? → Publish on webkit.org

  2. Is the content stable reference material? Does it describe architecture, design decisions, or contribution overview that engineers will cite long-term? → Publish on docs.webkit.org

  3. Is the content operational? Does it describe an internal workflow, coding convention, or process that changes frequently? → Publish on the GitHub Wiki

When in Doubt

If none of the criteria above clearly apply, default to the GitHub Wiki. Wiki content carries the lowest publication overhead and can be migrated to docs.webkit.org once it stabilizes into reference material.

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