Architecture documentation is very often treated stepmotherly. Yet documentation supports the design work and creates transparency and guard rails for the implementation and maintenance of the software architecture. On the one hand, it is not simple however to hold the important information from the draft of the software architecture structured and easily understandable. On the other hand, most attempts in search of practicable handling for creation and maintenance end in the WYSIWYG hell of a word processor or the deep maw of a wiki. Building on lightweight tools and text formats, this workshop shows how to create documentation that is as redundancy-free as possible and can be delivered in appealing formats optimized for different target groups.

With the help of many practical exercises, the seminar deals with concepts such as Continuous Documentation and Documentation as Code. The goal is modern, effective, and pragmatic documentation of software architecture. We build on proven methods, formats, and tools like AsciiDoc/Markdown, PlantUML, docToolchain, Maven/Gradle, jqAssistant, and many more. In detail, we take care of the automation of the documentation build process, the generation of content from the model, database schema or source code, the structured storage including versioning and historicization, and the use or creation of meaningful and easily maintainable graphics.

Agile development teams can thus integrate documentation work into their daily tasks and deliver up-to-date, comprehensive, and well-structured results at any time. In addition, the creation of documentation can be integrated into the review process and thus constantly improved and further developed.