Content docs updates aren't being applied to existing installations

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AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around the fact that updates to Discourse’s documentation (specifically in the docs/ folder) are not automatically applied to existing installations. downey points out that unless a Discourse instance was installed after a documentation file was updated, users won’t see those changes — and there’s no built-in mechanism to sync them. The suggested workaround is to manually upgrade the Docker container and check the “Quick Start” topic in the local Discourse instance. codinghorror notes this behavior is expected unless a feature is proposed to auto-update topics from external sources, adding that the documentation wasn’t finalized until v1.0 anyway and does link to the latest version. downey agrees, implying that users should be aware that documentation updates won’t automatically appear in their existing installations — and that the docs/ folder should be treated as a source of truth only for new installs or after manual updates. The conversation highlights a gap between documentation maintenance and user experience for long-running Discourse instances.

1

Continuing the discussion from Unable to pin or create pinned banner:

There have been lots of good improvements to the files in discourse/docs at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub but those updates don’t seem to make it in to existing installations of Discourse, only new ones. As a result, the older installations don’t have accurate/reliable/current documentation.

Reproduce:

  1. Use the Docker upgrade to update to a revision that has updated content in /docs within the repo, e.g., to ADMIN-QUICK-START-GUIDE.md.
  2. Look at the “Quick Start” topic in your local Discourse installation.
  3. Notice that the topic wasn’t updated since installing Discourse.
2

That’s expected, though, unless we are proposing some feature to update a Discourse topic from an external source on a regular basis.

This document was not final-ish until V1.0 anyways.

It does link to the latest version at the bottom, though, at least:

This guide is a work in progress and we hope to continually improve it with your feedback.

3

Yes … I think it’s pretty much assumed that if you can update the software you should be able to update the help docs that ship with it. :slight_smile: