Documentation
All software developed under the Digital Development Team (DDT) must include a complete and standardized documentation set.
Unless otherwise authorized by the Head of Digital Development or Head of DevOps, the following documentation artifacts are mandatory for every software component.
These documents ensure traceability, maintainability, operational readiness, and continuity of service across all DIT teams.
1. Pre-Development Documentation
Produced and maintained by the Business Intelligence & Requirement Analysis Team, these documents form the foundation of every software system:
- Software Requirement Specification (SRS)
- Process Maps & Business Workflow Diagrams
- Use Case Documentation & User Journeys
- Data Flow Diagrams (DFD)
- Domain Models & ERDs
- Change Requests and Additive Requirement Notes
- Versioned Requirement History
These documents must be linked or referenced in the codebase’s documentation section (e.g., /docs/requirements/).
2. Software Specification Document (SSD)
The Software Specification Document describes:
- System architecture and design
- Module-level functional descriptions
- API specifications
- Integration points
- Authentication & authorization models
- DevOps dependencies (queues, cron jobs, config maps, secrets, etc.)
- Data model and schema definitions
- External services used
This document must be kept up to date with every major or minor release.
3. Final Quality Assurance Report
Prepared by the QA & Testing Team, this includes:
- Full test plan
- Pass/fail matrix
- Known issues log
- Regression test results
- Acceptance report
- Automated test coverage summary
- Release readiness confirmation
No software is deployable without a QA sign-off.
4. Manuals
Every software must include clear, versioned, and reproducible manuals inside:
/docs/manuals/4.1 Installation Manual
Must include:
Prerequisites
- Supported OS
- Required databases, message brokers, caches
- Required SDKs / runtimes
- Environment variables
- Network rules
- Permissions & accounts
Local Installation Steps
- Clone repository
- Install dependencies
- Configure environment variables
- Run migrations
- Start services
- Seed initial data
Staging & Production Deployment Steps
- Preparing config files
- GitOps repository linking
- Helm charts / Kubernetes manifests
- Running migrations in production
- Seeding safe data
- Verifying health checks
- Rollback procedures
- Troubleshooting
Infrastructure Dependencies
- S3 buckets
- Redis
- RabbitMQ
- Cron jobs
- Ingress rules
- Certificates/TLS
A fresh DevOps engineer must be able to deploy the service end‑to‑end with this manual alone.
4.2 Operation Manual
Must include:
- Monitoring procedures
- Log viewing & tracing
- Dashboard references
- Secret rotation
- Queue backlog handling
- Restart & recovery procedures
- Incident response
- Backup & restore
- Disaster recovery steps
- Known operational caveats
4.3 User Manual
Must include:
- Full system walkthrough
- Screenshots
- Explanation of permissions and roles
- Guidance for routine tasks
- FAQs
- Support contact details
5. Release Notes
Each release must include a versioned note containing:
- Release date
- New features
- Improvements
- Bug fixes
- Breaking changes
- Migration notes
- API changes
- Known issues
- Security notes
Stored under:
/docs/releases/or using GitHub Releases.
6. README.md
Each repository must include a high-quality README.md containing:
- Project overview
- Architecture summary
- Local installation steps
- Environment variable list
- Running migrations
- Test suites
- Container build & run steps
- Short API overview
- Deployment notes
- Links to full documentation
Must follow the official DIT README template.
7. Additional Documentation (Optional but Recommended)
- Troubleshooting Guide
- Architecture Decision Records (ADR)
- Security Assessment Report
- Threat Modeling (STRIDE)
- Data Privacy & Retention Notes
- Integration Guides
- Load Testing Reports
- Kubernetes Resources Matrix
- Dependency Audit Logs