Divio's documentation system

A while ago I encountered the Divio documentation system. I really like it for its distinction between different kinds of users and their needs. As a recovering consultant, I confess to also loving the quadrant diagram.

This system is a great starting point, but there are many possible extensions we can apply to it. I first saw this noted by Hillel Wayne in his article: Beyond the Four-document model, in which he describes his vision for "Conceptual Overview" and "Examples" areas of documentation. At the end he briefly mentions a few more: "FAQs", "Troubleshooting" and "Best practices". A colleague of mine at Gradle also mentioned that she used "Cheat sheet" as an extension, which sounded like a great addition too.

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Created on 2022-08-05

Updated on 2025-07-06