srdd

About This Documentation Infrastructure

← Back to SRDD entry page

This page describes how the SRDD documentation is structured, built, and published.

Documentation Source

All documentation lives as Markdown files in the ./documentation directory of the GitHub repository. This is the single source of truth.

documentation/
├── index.md              # Entry point / overview
├── pitches.md            # Various length summaries
├── SRDD-part1-of-4.md    # Article series
├── SRDD-part2-of-4.md
├── SRDD-part3-of-4.md
├── SRDD-part4-of-4.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md       # Contribution guide
├── about.md              # This file
└── .sync-state.json      # Dev.to sync state (auto-generated)

Each Markdown file uses YAML front matter for metadata (title, description, etc.) and standard GitHub-flavored Markdown for content.

Cross-Document Linking

Documents use a placeholder syntax for internal links:

See [Part 1](/srdd/SRDD-part1-of-4.html) for details.

The ./slug.md pattern gets transformed differently depending on the target platform:

Platform Transformation
GitHub Pages ./slug.md → ./slug.md
Dev.to ./slug.md → actual Dev.to URL (e.g., https://dev.to/bbos/...)

This allows documents to link to each other without hard-coding URLs that differ across platforms.

GitHub Actions Pipeline

A single workflow (.github/workflows/deploy-and-sync.yml) handles all publishing:

Step 1: Build for GitHub Pages

- name: Transform devto placeholders for GHP
  run: |
    find ./documentation -name "*.md" -exec sed -i -E \
      's/\{\{devto:([^}]+)\}\}/.\/\1.md/g' {} \;

- name: Build with Jekyll
  uses: actions/jekyll-build-pages@v1
  with:
    source: ./documentation
    destination: ./_site

The pipeline:

  1. Copies assets into the documentation directory
  2. Transforms ./slug.md placeholders to relative .md links
  3. Builds with Jekyll
  4. Deploys to GitHub Pages

Step 2: Sync to Dev.to

After GitHub Pages deployment completes:

sync-to-devto:
  needs: deploy  # Run after deploy so canonical URLs are live
  steps:
    - name: Sync posts to Dev.to
      env:
        DEVTO_API_KEY: $
        SITE_URL: $

The sync script (scripts/sync-to-devto/sync-to-devto.js) performs a two-pass sync:

Pass 1: Create/Update Articles

For each Markdown file:

  1. Parse front matter and content
  2. Build canonical URL (pointing to GitHub Pages)
  3. Transform content (absolute URLs for images, strip styles)
  4. Create or update the Dev.to article via API
  5. Capture the returned Dev.to URL

Dev.to generates URLs with unpredictable suffixes (e.g., my-post-4k2n). After Pass 1, we have a map of slug → actual URL. Pass 2:

  1. Re-parses documents containing ./slug.md placeholders
  2. Replaces placeholders with actual Dev.to URLs from the map
  3. Updates those articles again with resolved links
// URL map built during Pass 1
{
  "index": "https://dev.to/bbos/srdd-is-the-best...-4k2n",
  "SRDD-part1-of-4": "https://dev.to/bbos/why-srdd-exists-2j8m",
  // ...
}

This two-pass approach ensures all cross-references resolve correctly despite Dev.to’s dynamic URL generation.

Incremental Sync

The sync script only uploads posts that have changed, reducing API calls and speeding up the pipeline.

How it works:

  1. Each post’s content is hashed (SHA-256, truncated to 32 chars / 128 bits)
  2. Hashes are stored in documentation/.sync-state.json
  3. On each run, current hashes are compared with stored hashes
  4. Only posts with different hashes are synced
  5. The updated state file is committed back to the repository
// .sync-state.json
{
  "index": { "hash": "a1b2c3d4e5f67890...", "syncedAt": "2026-01-07T10:00:00Z", "url": "https://dev.to/bbos/srdd-...-4k2n" },
  "pitches": { "hash": "f0e1d2c3b4a59687...", "syncedAt": "2026-01-07T10:00:00Z", "url": "https://dev.to/bbos/pitches-...-2j8m" }
}

The url field caches each article’s Dev.to URL, enabling placeholder resolution even when API rate limits prevent fetching URLs.

Force full sync:

To sync all posts regardless of changes, set the FORCE_SYNC environment variable:

env:
  FORCE_SYNC: 'true'

Or run locally with the --force flag:

node sync-to-devto.js --force

# Or with .env file (loads DEVTO_API_KEY, SITE_URL, etc.)
export $(grep -v '^#' .env | xargs) && node sync-to-devto.js --force

Refresh URL cache:

Dev.to URLs are cached in sync state. To refresh the cache (useful if articles were renamed or URLs changed):

env:
  REFRESH_URLS: 'true'

Or run locally:

node sync-to-devto.js --refresh-urls

# Or with .env file
export $(grep -v '^#' .env | xargs) && node sync-to-devto.js --refresh-urls

Canonical URLs

Every article on Dev.to includes a canonical_url pointing to the GitHub Pages version:

canonical_url: https://docs-bbos.github.io/srdd/SRDD-part1-of-4/

This tells search engines that GitHub Pages is the authoritative source. Benefits:

Adding New Documentation

To add a new page:

  1. Create documentation/new-page.md with appropriate front matter
  2. Link from other pages using ./new-page.md
  3. Commit and push to main
  4. The pipeline automatically deploys to GitHub Pages and syncs to Dev.to

Environment Configuration

The pipeline requires:

Secret/Variable Purpose
DEVTO_API_KEY Dev.to API key from dev.to/settings/extensions
SITE_URL GitHub Pages URL (e.g., https://docs-bbos.github.io/srdd)

This infrastructure enables “write once, publish everywhere” for living documentation that evolves with the methodology.