These guidelines are a minimal exemplar that can be used as a template for your software project.
There are other options that will allow you to achieve documentation best practice. Examples of these options are provided here.
Create custom documentation
README: use https://readme.so/ to create your own custom README contentCITATION.cff: create a CFF file using this resource https://citation-file-format.github.io/cff-initializer-javascript/#/
Use automated documentation tools
See rule #8 from Lee (2018).
Contribute to a community effort
Workflows
The BioCommons guideline is based on learnings from multiple community efforts including the Galaxy Intergalactic Workflow Commission (IWC), nf-core and Snakemake.
If you are using Galaxy, Nextflow or Snakemake workflow languages and would like to contribute to their community workflow efforts, you could be using their specific guidelines, which are linked to below:
| Community effort | Workflow language documentation | Workflow guideline information | How to create / contribute new workflows |
|---|---|---|---|
| IWC | Galaxy | IWC GitHub | IWC adding workflows |
| nf-core | Nextflow | nf-core developer guidelines | nf-core adding_pipelines |
| Snakemake | Snakemake | Snakemake-workflows guidelines | Snakemake-workflows contribute |
Publish a paper!
References
Lee BD (2018) Ten simple rules for documenting scientific software. PLoS Comput Biol 14(12): e1006561. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006561