Documentation as Infrastructure

Kabuo, Chimdia Primus

doi:10.5281/zenodo.19599507

Published April 15, 2026 | Version v1

Presentation Open

Documentation as Infrastructure

Kabuo, Chimdia Primus (Contact person)¹

1. Purdue University System

Scientific software often fails not because of algorithms, performance, or infrastructure, but because teams cannot sustain the knowledge required to maintain it. As research groups grow and rotate, documentation becomes fragmented, outdated, or entirely absent—creating onboarding friction, duplicated effort, and long‑term maintenance risk. At Purdue University’s Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC), I have worked across multiple research software and training projects to design and implement a centralized documentation strategy that treats documentation as shared infrastructure rather than a side task.

Notes

This talk presents a practical, lightweight framework for building sustainable documentation systems in scientific software teams. I will share lessons learned from unifying documentation across HPC workflows, training pipelines, and collaborative development environments, including how to establish documentation ownership, structure contributor‑friendly content, and integrate automation to reduce maintenance overhead. I also discuss where AI‑assisted tools can responsibly support documentation work without compromising accuracy or reproducibility.

Attendees will leave with actionable templates, governance patterns, and workflow recommendations that can be adopted by teams of any size. By reframing documentation as a core component of software sustainability, we can reduce technical debt, improve developer experience, and strengthen the long‑term impact of scientific research.

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