How to write technical documentation that developers actually use

Documentation is the first thing developers reach for when evaluating a new tool and the first thing they blame when integration takes too long. Yet most technical documentation is written once, published, and left to slowly drift out of sync with the product it describes.

The difference between documentation that works and documentation that frustrates comes down to how you write it, how you structure it, and -- critically -- how you keep it current. This guide covers the full process, from choosing a documentation framework to building a workflow that keeps your docs accurate as your product evolves.

What is technical documentation?

Technical documentation is any written content that explains how a technical product, system, or API works. It includes setup guides, API references, architecture overviews, code examples, and troubleshooting content.

Unlike marketing content or general product guides, technical documentation is written for an audience that needs to build with, integrate, or operate your product. The reader is typically a developer, system administrator, or technical decision-maker who needs precise, actionable information.

Good technical documentation answers three questions: What does this do? How do I use it? What do I do when something goes wrong?

Why technical documentation matters

Poor documentation costs more than most teams realize. It shows up as slower onboarding, more support tickets, lower adoption, and lost deals.

Developer experience is a competitive advantage. When developers evaluate competing tools, documentation quality is often the deciding factor. A product with clear, comprehensive docs wins over a technically superior product with confusing or incomplete documentation.

Self-service scales, support does not. Every answer embedded in your documentation is a question your engineering or support team does not have to answer manually. As your user base grows, good documentation becomes the difference between linear and exponential support costs.

Internal alignment improves. Technical documentation does not just serve external users. It helps your own team -- new engineers onboarding to the codebase, product managers understanding system behavior, and support engineers troubleshooting issues.

Types of technical documentation

Before you start writing, understand the different types of content your documentation might need. The Diataxis framework, created by Daniele Procida, provides a useful model that organizes documentation into four categories:

Tutorials

Tutorials are learning-oriented. They walk a new user through a complete workflow from start to finish, with every step spelled out. The goal is not just to show how something works, but to build the user's confidence and understanding.

A good tutorial has a clear starting point, a defined end state, and every step in between. It does not skip anything or assume prior knowledge beyond what is explicitly stated as a prerequisite.

Example: "Build Your First API Integration in 10 Minutes."

How-to guides

How-to guides are task-oriented. They assume the reader already understands the basics and needs to accomplish a specific goal. Unlike tutorials, they do not teach from scratch -- they provide targeted instructions for a known task.

Example: "How to Set Up Webhook Notifications for New Orders."

Reference

Reference documentation is information-oriented. It is a comprehensive, structured catalog of your system -- every API endpoint, every configuration option, every parameter and its type. Reference docs should be accurate, complete, and consistently formatted.

This is the section developers use most once they are past the onboarding phase. It needs to be exhaustive and easy to search.

Example: API reference with endpoints, parameters, request/response examples, and error codes.

Explanation

Explanation content is understanding-oriented. It covers the "why" behind design decisions, architectural concepts, and how different parts of a system relate to each other. This type of content helps developers build a mental model of your product.

Example: "How Our Authentication System Works" -- covering the flow, design rationale, and security model.

Most documentation sites need a mix of all four types. The common mistake is writing only reference documentation and skipping tutorials and explanations, which leaves new users without a path to get started.

How to write technical documentation: a step-by-step process

Step 1: Know your audience

Technical documentation can target wildly different readers: frontend developers, backend engineers, DevOps teams, data scientists, or technical product managers. Each group has different levels of familiarity, different goals, and different expectations for depth.

Define your primary audience before you write a single word. If your product serves multiple audiences, consider separate documentation paths for each -- a quickstart for backend developers, a different one for frontend developers, and a dedicated section for administrators.

Step 2: Choose a documentation framework

Rather than inventing your structure from scratch, start with an established framework. Diataxis (described above) is the most widely adopted. It gives you a clear mental model for what type of content to create and where it belongs.

Your top-level navigation might look something like:

• Getting Started (tutorials)
• Guides (how-to content)
• API Reference (reference)
• Concepts (explanation)

This structure is intuitive because it matches how developers actually use documentation: they start with a tutorial, move to guides for specific tasks, reference the API when building, and read concepts when they need deeper understanding.

Step 3: Set up a docs-as-code workflow

The docs-as-code approach treats documentation like source code: it lives in a Git repository, changes go through pull requests, and updates deploy automatically. This workflow has become the standard for developer documentation because it keeps documentation versioned alongside your code, lets developers contribute using tools they already know (Git, Markdown, their code editor), enables review processes that catch errors before publication, and supports automation for building, testing, and deploying docs.

Modern documentation platforms support this natively. Mintlify, for example, provides bi-directional Git sync -- you can write in Markdown in your repository and changes deploy automatically, or use a visual editor that commits back to Git. This means both technical and non-technical team members can contribute without friction.

Step 4: Start with your most critical path

Do not try to document everything at once. Start with the path your users need most: the getting-started experience. What does a new user need to do first? What are the three to five most common tasks? What questions does your support team answer most often?

Write those pieces first, publish them, and iterate based on feedback. Expanding coverage over time is much more effective than trying to ship comprehensive documentation in one go.

Step 5: Write for scanning, not reading

Developers are looking for answers, not reading a novel. Structure your content so they can find what they need in seconds:

Use descriptive headings. "Configuring Rate Limits" is better than "Configuration." Headings should tell the reader exactly what they will learn.

Lead with the answer. Put the most important information first. If someone asks "what format does the date field accept?" the answer should be in the first sentence, not after three paragraphs of context.

Use code examples liberally. For technical audiences, a code example is worth a thousand words of explanation. Show the complete request and response, not just fragments.

Keep paragraphs short. Two to four sentences per paragraph. Long blocks of text get skipped.

Use callouts for important notes. Warnings, prerequisites, and gotchas should be visually distinct from the surrounding text so they are not missed.

Step 6: Write accurate code examples

Code examples are the most valuable part of technical documentation, and the most likely to be wrong. Follow these principles:

Make examples runnable. Every code example should work if copied and pasted. Do not use pseudocode or incomplete snippets unless clearly labeled.

Show complete workflows. Do not just show the API call -- show the import statements, the setup, the call, and how to handle the response. Developers need the full picture.

Cover error handling. Show what happens when things go wrong, not just the happy path. Include error response examples and how to handle common failure modes.

Use realistic data. Replace placeholder values like "foo" and "bar" with realistic examples that help readers understand what real data looks like.

Test your examples. If possible, run your code examples as part of your CI pipeline to catch breakage automatically.

Step 7: Build a maintenance process

Documentation debt accumulates just like technical debt. Without a process for keeping docs current, accuracy degrades with every release.

Tie documentation to your release process. Make documentation review a required step before shipping any user-facing change. If a PR changes API behavior, the corresponding docs update should be part of the same workflow.

Use analytics to find gaps. Track what users search for in your docs. Searches with no results or high exit rates indicate missing or insufficient content.

Automate where possible. Tools exist that can detect codebase changes and flag documentation that may need updating. Mintlify's documentation agent, for instance, monitors your codebase, detects user-facing changes, and proposes documentation updates automatically -- reducing the manual effort of keeping docs in sync.

Schedule regular audits. Even with automation, schedule quarterly reviews of your highest-traffic pages to ensure accuracy and clarity.

Technical documentation examples

Let's look at what well-structured technical documentation looks like in practice.

Good API reference entry

A strong API reference entry includes the endpoint path and method, a clear description of what it does, every parameter with its type, whether it is required, and what it does, a complete request example, a complete response example with realistic data, error codes and what they mean, and rate limiting information.

Good tutorial structure

An effective tutorial starts with a clear statement of what the reader will build and how long it will take. It lists prerequisites explicitly. Each step includes what to do, the exact code or commands, and what the reader should see after completing it. It ends with next steps that point to relevant how-to guides.

Good how-to guide

A how-to guide states the goal upfront ("This guide shows you how to configure SSO with Okta"). It lists prerequisites, provides step-by-step instructions, and links to related reference documentation for anyone who wants to understand the underlying configuration options in more depth.

Common technical documentation mistakes

Writing for yourself instead of your users. Engineers often document how the system works internally rather than how to use it. Your users do not care about your database schema -- they care about how to get data in and out of your product.

Assuming too much knowledge. Every audience has a floor of assumed knowledge, but most documentation sets that floor too high. When in doubt, explain more. A brief clarification never hurt an expert, but a missing explanation stops a novice cold.

Neglecting maintenance. Outdated documentation is worse than no documentation. It erodes trust -- once a developer finds one wrong example, they stop trusting everything else you have written.

Skipping code examples. No amount of prose can replace a working code example for a technical audience. If you are explaining how to use an API, show the code.

Burying the getting-started experience. If a new user cannot go from zero to a working integration within 15 minutes of reading your docs, your onboarding content needs work.

Choosing the right documentation tool

Your documentation tool shapes how your team writes, maintains, and delivers content.

Git-based workflow. Documentation should live in version control, support branching, and deploy through CI/CD. This keeps docs in sync with your code and lets developers contribute naturally.

Built-in search. Fast, accurate search is table stakes. AI-powered search that understands natural language queries is increasingly the expectation.

API documentation support. If your product has an API, your documentation tool should generate interactive API references from OpenAPI specifications, complete with request builders and response previews.

Analytics. You need to know what users are reading, what they are searching for, and where they are dropping off.

Performance. Documentation pages should load instantly. Developers are impatient, and slow docs increase bounce rates.

Platforms like Mintlify are purpose-built for this use case, offering Git sync, AI-native search and chat, OpenAPI-generated API references, and built-in analytics in a single platform.

Key takeaways

Great technical documentation combines clear writing with the right structure, the right tools, and a sustainable maintenance process. Start with a framework like Diataxis to organize your content, adopt a docs-as-code workflow so documentation stays close to your code, and invest in tooling that makes maintenance automated rather than manual. The teams that treat documentation as a product -- not an afterthought -- build the best developer experiences.

Ready to build technical documentation that stays accurate and looks great? Try Mintlify to see how modern teams ship developer docs with Git sync, AI-powered search, and automatic update detection.