Quickstarts

Quickstarts are the most important part of any documentation. Senior developers and junior developers alike can use a quickstart to verify that your project is installed correctly and works on their machine. Some (but not all) developers can intuit how a library works and is intended from a quickstart, but this won't apply for large platforms. Using a quickstart as the "front page" of your docs is a best practice, if it makes sense.

When prioritizing updating your documentation, update your quickstart first. It is the "Brand Image" of your project. A broken quickstart is the fastest way to lose community credibility. Have someone other than the creator of the library check that they can use the quickstart before considering it complete.

Checklist

• Quickstart is up-to-date
• Quickstart is on the first page of the documentation
• Quickstart features working code that can be copy-pasted and is guaranteed to run
• Tests that test the quickstart
• Example that does the use case you originally made the thing for (or the most popular one)
• Has more than one example
• Examples are prototypical uses
• Examples are as simple as possible
• Examples involve as few integrations as possible
• Examples are complete and do not omit import statements
• Reviewed by a Senior developer
• Reviewed by a Junior developer