System Documentation: What You Will Receive at Handover
At project handover, you receive a comprehensive documentation pack that allows your team (or a future supplier) to understand, operate, and extend the system we have built.
Documentation Pack Contents
- Architecture overview: High-level diagram and narrative describing the system's components, how they interact, and the key architectural decisions made
- Infrastructure documentation: Cloud resources provisioned, how they are configured, and how to manage them. Includes Terraform/infrastructure-as-code files where applicable.
- API documentation: OpenAPI specification and Swagger UI for all APIs (see our separate API Documentation article)
- Data model: Database schema, entity-relationship diagrams, and explanations of key data structures
- Deployment guide: Step-by-step instructions for deploying the system to a new environment
- Runbook: Operational procedures for common tasks — how to restart services, how to roll back a deployment, how to restore from backup
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs): The documented rationale behind key technical decisions
- Software Bill of Materials (SBOM): All third-party dependencies and their licence types
- Known issues and limitations: Any known bugs or limitations in the current version, with planned remediation
Where Documentation Lives
Primary documentation lives in the code repository (in a /docs folder) so it is version-controlled and stays alongside the code. We also provide a compiled PDF version for non-technical stakeholders.
Documentation as Living Document
If we continue working with you after handover, we maintain and update documentation as the system evolves. Outdated documentation is flagged and updated as part of every sprint.