# Plugin Documentation Style Guide
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [August 30, 2018, 5:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973 "2018-08-30T05:05:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jameshahnii](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jameshahnii)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2018, 5:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973/1 "2018-08-30T05:05:51Z")
Evening, y’all. After 8 days of very little sleep, I have seen the promised land and am finally hacking away at my own self-hosted Discourse install. Once I successfully installed my first plugin early this morning I went to work researching and adding every plugin that made sense on the [all-the-plugins page](https://github.com/discourse/all-the-plugins/tree/master/plugins).
I run a marketing services company and do a lot of market research so I naturally developed a process to infer the plugins I could trust and that performed well vs. the outliers. A key to the whole process was finding the discussion on meta and digging into the engagement. As time went on I got to be **very** thankful for plugin developers that included a “See the discussion/Read more about this plugin at [https://meta.discourse](https://meta.discourse)…” link. If everyone did it, I could have been done in half the time.
Maybe it’s just the former technical writer in me (did a 1-year tour back in Nam … or Austin), but has anyone thought about creating a basic plugin documentation style guide? [Beginner’s Guide to Creating Discourse Plugins](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-1/30515) is fantastic, but it stops at Acceptance Tests. The community clearly values standardization with @eviltrout doing the yeoman’s work in building [The Official Discourse Style Guide Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-official-discourse-styleguide-plugin/67405), but that only deals with standardizing look and feel.
I contend it would be in the best interest of everyone, especially self-taught developers learning as they go like myself, if there was a style guide to help streamline and standardize the way developers document their plugins. The ultimate responsibility falls back on the developer to follow-through and follow the standards, but from where I sit it’s critical to continuing to grow and scale the platform. At Journalism School, we had the [Associated Press Stylebook](https://www.apstylebook.com/) to follow. Wikipedia has its [Manual of Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style). Heck, even in the oilfield we have the [SPE Style Guide](https://www.spe.org/authors/docs/SPE-Style-Guide-2015-16.pdf).
I think more than being a burden to force on the community it could be a relief to many. I know I was thrilled when I didn’t have to guess if you spelled it “crosslink” or “cross-link” anymore… it’s crosslink, btw… Discourse’s wouldn’t have to even be all that in-depth. Some suggestions around basic headings to be sure to include would be a wonderful start. I mean, we already do it with the education overlay when you start a new topic… seems like a no-brainer.
Of course, I haven’t slept in a while so these might just be the sleep-deprived ramblings of a lunatic.
Either way, what say ye?
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2018, 9:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973/2 "2018-09-05T09:36:16Z")
I quite like this. Simple v1 could be to add a last step to the plugin guide that’s about “share your plugin!” and provide some best practices for plugin topics and Git readmes there.
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### Author:  [@jameshahnii](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jameshahnii)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973/3 "2018-09-05T15:44:52Z")
Woooo!! I’m not the only one!! 👏 👏 👏
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2018, 3:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-documentation-style-guide/95973/8 "2018-11-09T03:22:43Z")
Part 7 of the Plugin guide is now up:
> [@Developing Discourse Plugins - Part 7 - Publish your plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginner-s-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-7-publish-your-plugin/101636):
>
> Previous tutorial: [Developing Discourse Plugins - Part 6 - Add acceptance tests](https://meta.discourse.org/t/developing-discourse-plugins-part-6-add-acceptance-tests/32619) You’ve [created your plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-1/30515), you’ve [uploaded it to GitHub](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-4-git-setup/31272) and you’ve [added tests](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginner-s-guide-to-creating-discourse-plugins-part-6-acceptance-tests/32619). Great! Problem is, no one else knows about it. Documenting your plugin All plugins require good documentation. Users need to know what the plugin does, how to install it, important settings/configuration changes needed, and how to use it. Plugins should be documented in two different locations: the README.md file within your git repo,…