The Modern Technical Writer’s Guide to Docs-as-Code
Modern technical writing is increasingly shaped by developer workflows, AI tooling, and open source practices. As highlighted in the May 2026 Technical Writing Scouting Report published by Words n Logic, docs-as-code skills continue to appear across some of the most competitive technical writing and developer documentation roles in the industry. Technical Writing Scouting Report – May 2026
But for many writers, concepts like pull requests, CI/CD pipelines, Git workflows, and static site generators can still feel intimidating or disconnected from traditional documentation practices.
In this practical session, we’ll walk through how modern documentation teams build, review, deploy, and scale documentation using docs-as-code workflows centered around Docusaurus.
Topics include:
• How Docusaurus compares to traditional documentation tooling
• Documentation architecture and content organization
• Markdown and MDX workflows
• GitHub collaboration and pull request reviews
• CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions
• Deployment workflows with Netlify and Vercel
• Real-world tradeoffs around scaling, build times, and maintainability
Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how modern documentation ecosystems work from end to end:
Writer → Pull Request → Review → GitHub Actions → Deploy → Live Docs
This session is ideal for:
• Technical writers transitioning into docs-as-code
• Writers using tools like Flare, DITA XML tools such as Oxygen XML Editor or Adobe FrameMaker, as well as Confluence or Microsoft Word.
• Freelancers and consultants
• Developer documentation professionals
• Anyone looking to become more competitive in the modern technical writing market
Event agenda:
5:00–5:20 PM — Welcome + networking
5:20–5:30 PM — Community updates + Technical Writing Scouting Report
5:30–6:15 PM — Docs-as-Code in Practice: Building Modern Documentation with Docusaurus
6:15–6:30 PM — Q&A + discussion
6:30–6:45 PM — Networking + closing remarks
Speaker Bio: Doug Purcell is a San Francisco-based technical writer with experience creating software and hardware documentation for several Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley. He has worked across the cybersecurity, enterprise software, and server industries, producing customer-facing documentation focused on developer workflows, infrastructure, and enterprise technologies.
Doug is also a community organizer for Write the Docs Bay Area, where he helps bring together technical writers, developer documentation professionals, and AI-focused practitioners through community events, industry discussions, and technical workshops focused on the future of documentation and developer experience.
This is not a Library-sponsored event.The City of Santa Clara is neither responsible nor liable for information provided by users of the Library meeting rooms.