Enterprise Documentation Taxonomy
Summary
The taxonomy assigns each page one primary content type and any number of tags. A primary type determines structure and reader intent; tags provide secondary discovery facets.
Audience
- Documentation authors and reviewers
- Product owners, developers, QA engineers, and architects
Reference Content
| Type | Reader intent | Typical content |
|---|---|---|
| Concept | Understand a domain idea | Definitions, relationships, boundaries |
| Explanation | Understand why or how a system behaves | Design rationale and contextual analysis |
| Tutorial | Learn through a guided sequence | End-to-end learning path |
| How-To | Complete a specific task | Prerequisites, steps, validation |
| Reference | Look up stable facts | Catalogs, fields, states, mappings |
| Architecture | Understand system structure | Context, components, data, integrations |
| Runbook | Operate or recover a service | Controlled procedure, validation, escalation |
| Troubleshooting | Diagnose a known symptom | Cause, safe resolution, validation |
| Business Process | Understand a verified workflow | Actors, states, decisions, outcomes |
| API | Integrate through a service contract | Operations, request/response, errors |
| Database | Understand persistence ownership | Entities, relationships, retention, lineage |
| Events | Integrate asynchronously | Producers, consumers, semantics, versioning |
| UI | Use an approved interface | Navigation, fields, states, accessibility |
| Operations | Administer and monitor safely | Configuration ownership, health, jobs |
The portal’s current content_type vocabulary remains backward compatible. concept covers explanation and business-process pages until those types are added to enforced templates; reference covers API, database, events, and UI reference when a specialized type is not yet enforced.
Use only one primary type. If a page tries to serve several intents, split it and connect the pages through metadata and links.
Related Articles
See Also
Keywords
- Content taxonomy
- Reader intent
- Documentation types
Revision Information
- Status: Draft
- Last reviewed: 2026-07-15
- Review cycle: Quarterly