sourcefirst

Sourcefirst is a term used to describe a principle in which the original source materials are treated as the primary, authoritative artifacts in a workflow. It is not tied to a single product or organization; rather, it appears in software development, documentation, localization, and data pipelines as a general approach to maintainability and traceability.

The core idea of sourcefirst is a single source of truth. Source files are version-controlled and used by automated pipelines to produce downstream artifacts such as builds, rendered documentation, or localized strings. Outputs are generated rather than edited directly, and changes propagate deterministically from the source. This approach emphasizes reproducible builds, validation against the source, and clear provenance from outputs back to the exact source content and version.

Applications of sourcefirst include software projects where code and documentation are stored in the same or coordinated repositories, documentation pipelines that render HTML or PDFs from Markdown or XML, localization workflows where translations are derived from a base language, and data workflows where analyses and reports are reproducible from raw inputs. The emphasis on a primary source improves consistency, auditability, and collaboration, while enabling easier updates and refactors.

Benefits commonly cited for sourcefirst include improved consistency across artifacts, faster refreshes, and safer collaboration through clear provenance. Challenges can include upfront tooling and process requirements, the need to manage generated artifacts to avoid drift, and the overhead of maintaining rigorous pipelines. See also single source of truth, reproducible builds, and literate programming.