In the rush of a deployment or the heat of a bug fix, documentation is often seen as the “boring tax” we pay at the end of a project. But after years of building and maintaining systems, I’ve realized that documentation isn’t a chore; it’s an act of empathy.
Writing for a Stranger (Who happens to be Me)
The person who will read my documentation in six months is essentially a stranger. They won’t remember why I chose this specific port, or why this script needs that exact environment variable.
By writing clear, concise docs, I am being kind to my future self. I am making sure that “Future Me” doesn’t have to spend three hours debugging a problem I already solved today.
The “If it’s not documented, it doesn’t exist” Rule
This is a philosophy I carry everywhere. Whether it’s a complex pipeline or a simple Docker Compose file on my Hetzner VPS:
- The “Why” matters more than the “How”: Code tells you how it works, but documentation tells you why it exists.
- Knowledge Sovereignty: In my quest for digital sovereignty, owning my documentation (in Markdown, versioned in Gitea) is just as important as owning my data.
Fighting Entropy
Infrastructure has a natural tendency to drift toward chaos. Systems change, dependencies update, and logic fades from memory. Documentation is the only force capable of slowing down this entropy. It’s the “save point” in the video game of sysadmin life. Without it, every incident is a new struggle; with it, every incident is just a known procedure.
Conclusion: A Love Letter to Clarity
Documentation is the bridge between a “hacky” setup and a professional infrastructure. It’s the difference between panic and peace of mind during a crash. In a world of increasing technical complexity, being able to explain things simply is the ultimate skill—even if I’m only explaining them to myself.
