Keep documentation up-to-date | Codex use cases

Codex use cases

Codex use case

Keep documentation up-to-date

Use code and other sources to automate docs updates.

Difficulty Easy

Time horizon 30m

Use Codex to compare source code changes, public docs, release notes, and PR context, then draft focused documentation updates with verification steps before publishing.

Best for

• Developer docs, READMEs, runbooks, examples, and migration notes that need to track behavior that changes frequently.
• Teams that maintain documentation for a technical product.

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Use Codex to compare source code changes, public docs, release notes, and PR context, then draft focused documentation updates with verification steps before publishing.

Easy

30m

Related links

Workflows

Best for

• Developer docs, READMEs, runbooks, examples, and migration notes that need to track behavior that changes frequently.
• Teams that maintain documentation for a technical product.

Skills & Plugins

• GitHub

  Read issues, pull requests, comments, review threads, and failed checks when GitHub is part of your bug intake.

Starter prompt

Update the [product/feature] documentation based on the following sources:

• the changed source files in [this repo/source linked repo]
• the existing docs pages that mention a new behavior
• any linked issue, PR, release note, or public reference I provide below Then:
• identify what is user-facing
• update only the docs that need to change
• keep unpublished roadmap, private customer details, and internal-only context out of public docs
• preserve the existing docs structure, terminology, and cross-links
• run the docs checks that fit the change Before finalizing, summarize what changed, what you verified, and any claims you could not prove from trusted sources. [link release notes or other references here]

Open in the Codex app

Update the [product/feature] documentation based on the following sources:

• the changed source files in [this repo/source linked repo]
• the existing docs pages that mention a new behavior
• any linked issue, PR, release note, or public reference I provide below Then:
• identify what is user-facing
• update only the docs that need to change
• keep unpublished roadmap, private customer details, and internal-only context out of public docs
• preserve the existing docs structure, terminology, and cross-links
• run the docs checks that fit the change Before finalizing, summarize what changed, what you verified, and any claims you could not prove from trusted sources. [link release notes or other references here]

Introduction

Documentation is easiest to keep current when it is updated alongside source changes, not weeks later. Codex can inspect changed code, tests, release notes, linked issues, and pull request context, then draft a scoped docs update that matches the existing structure.

Use this workflow for developer docs, README updates, changelog drafts, migration notes, runbooks, or anything else that needs to track behavior that changes frequently.

How to use

1. Start from the change you need to document.

   Share the branch, pull request, commit, issue, or files. If the docs are public, say explicitly that unpublished roadmap, private customer details, and internal-only context should stay out.

2. Ask Codex to map the affected docs.

   Have it search existing docs for feature names, config keys, commands, examples, and related terms before drafting.

3. Update the smallest useful docs surface.

   Codex should preserve the current page structure, terminology, cross-links, and frontmatter. It should avoid broad rewrites when a precise note, example, or section update is enough.

4. Verify the changes.

   Ask Codex to run formatting and docs checks that fit the repo, then summarize the evidence behind each user-facing claim.

What to give Codex

Adding more context such as public release notes lets Codex avoid including private context or updates that are not yet public.

Make the workflow repeatable

For a repo-wide convention, add documentation expectations to AGENTS.md. For example:

## Documentation

- When user-facing behavior changes, check whether docs, examples, or changelogs need updates.
- Public docs must only include public information or behavior visible in this repo.
- Preserve existing terminology and frontmatter.
- Run the docs formatting and build checks before final handoff.

If the process has more steps, turn it into a skill so future Codex threads can follow the same source-checking, drafting, and verification loop. See Save workflows as skills that shares more details on this pattern.

You can also turn this workflow into a thread automation by asking Codex to run it on a schedule, asking to fetch all the recent PRs from GitHub to automatically keep docs up-to-date, for example on a weekly basis:

Create an automation that does the same as the workflow above, fetching all the recent PRs in [this repo/linked repo] and update docs based on the changes.

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