Documentationonly

Documentationonly refers to software artifacts whose primary content is documentation rather than executable code or runtime assets. It denotes materials such as user guides, API references, tutorials, design notes, and release notes that are distributed separately from the software itself. A documentation-only artifact may be produced as a distinct package labeled with a suffix such as -docs or documentation, or as a dedicated build target within a project.

In practice, many projects publish documentation-only packages to enable offline viewing, simplify licensing and compliance, or support distributions that separate documentation from binaries. Documentation may be generated from source code comments, markdown files, or other sources, and can be versioned to match software releases. Some ecosystems maintain documentation in a separate repository, while others generate it from the main codebase during release.

Maintenance and considerations: Keeping docs in sync with code requires automation; stale docs undermine usefulness. Documentation-only artifacts may omit tests or binaries, focus on navigation, searchability, and localization, and may rely on static site generators or doc tools such as Sphinx, Docusaurus, or Javadoc.

Benefits and limitations: Pros include reduced download size for users who only need references, easier translation workflows, and clearer license separation. Cons include risk of divergence from code, added maintenance overhead, and potential confusion about what the artifact contains.

See also: API documentation, doc generation, -docs packaging.