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Nick Vigilante f7632451f4 feat(docs): add Coder.BrandNames Vale rule, enforce HashiCorp casing (#25501) 
Lands the first concrete rule under the `Coder` style:
`Coder.BrandNames`, a bundled `substitution` rule that enforces
canonical brand casing in prose. HashiCorp is the first entry;
[DOCS-188](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-188) extends it with
GitHub, OpenTofu, Kubernetes, Terraform, JetBrains, and VS Code.

## What changes

Four commits, ordered so each is independently valid:

1. **`docs: fix HashiCorp casing in prose and sidebar`**
([06d769dad1](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/25501/commits/06d769dad179cf85c535b058df3b6bafdc1f9565)).
5 Markdown files plus 2 `docs/manifest.json` entries. Drives the corpus
violation count to zero.
2. **`feat(docs/.style/styles/Coder): add Coder.BrandNames Vale rule`**
([e00fc780a7](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/25501/commits/e00fc780a7a20dcf82105d997af5cfcddd4b1855)).
New `BrandNames.yml` with the HashiCorp swap at `level: error`, plus a
new `### Brand names` subsection in `docs/.style/style-guide.md`.
3. **`docs(.style/styles/Coder/README.md): scrub planned-rules notes
obsoleted by Coder.BrandNames`**
([af8833b9f5](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/25501/commits/af8833b9f58dd617732ae533bbf53eb4fc2e816a)).
Removes the README's "intentionally empty for now" lead-in and the
obsolete HashiCorp casing bullet from the planned-coverage list.
4. **`docs: apply semantic line breaks and fix Vale findings on
PR-touched files`**
([e9f11df188](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/25501/commits/e9f11df1886fdf0d5efc5e8a2cab95fecbd898f9)).
Pre-review pass on every Markdown file this PR modifies. Full sembr and
Vale-warning cleanup on the style-guide infrastructure
(`style-guide.md`, `Coder/README.md`); sembr applied to the HashiCorp
swap paragraph only on the five product docs, per scoping discussion
with @nickvigilante.

## Severity rationale

`error` from day one. HashiCorp's brand owner publishes a canonical
casing; any other casing in prose is wrong, not a judgment call. Matches
the `error = low FPs x high gravity` framework. False-positive rate is
effectively zero because Vale's `substitution` rule skips inline code,
fenced code blocks, and URLs by default, so `hashicorp/kubernetes`
(Terraform provider source) and `developer.hashicorp.com` stay
untouched.

## Verification

- `make lint/markdown`: 0 errors across 487 files.
- `make lint/prose`: 1 error, 1 warning, 1 suggestion in 468 files. All
three findings are the intentional `Coder.DemoError`,
`Coder.DemoWarning`, and `Coder.DemoSuggestion` annotations on
`docs/.style/style-guide/demo/demo.md` (added on main as part of the
[DOCS-425](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-425) inline-annotation
demo), not real findings. `Coder.BrandNames` fires zero times against
the cleaned-up corpus.
- `make pre-commit-light`: passed (7s).
- Self-test: ran the rule against an unmodified `docs/` and confirmed it
flags the 7 prose instances the cleanup commit fixes, then re-ran
against the post-cleanup state and confirmed zero alerts.

## Known future conflict

When [#26632](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/26632)
([DOCS-434](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-434)) merges, the
monolithic `docs/.style/style-guide.md` is split into the
`docs/.style/style-guide/` multi-page structure. The `### Brand names`
subsection added in commit 2 will need to land in
`docs/.style/style-guide/word-choice.md` (which already references the
rule), and the `link:` in `docs/.style/styles/Coder/BrandNames.yml` will
need to update from `style-guide.md#brand-names` to
`style-guide/word-choice.md#brand-names`. Resolution path documented in
an inline comment on this PR.

<details>
<summary>Implementation plan and decision log</summary>

### Why bundle into Coder.BrandNames rather than one file per brand

Vale's convention (mirrored by `Google.WordList` with ~70 swaps in a
single file) is to bundle `substitution` rules when they share severity,
message template, and link. All brand-name rules share that shape:
`error`, `Use '%s' instead of '%s'`, link to the style guide section.
Bundling reduces "add a brand" to a one-line YAML diff and keeps
`CODEOWNERS` and blame coherent. Per-rule performance is irrelevant at
this scale; Vale's per-rule overhead is sub-millisecond and dwarfed by
Markdown parsing.

### Why the cleanup lands first

Commits are ordered cleanup-then-rule so each commit is a known-good
state:

- After commit 1: corpus is HashiCorp-clean, but no rule exists yet.
- After commit 2: rule exists and lints a clean corpus.

Reversing the order would land the rule at commit 1 (firing 7 errors on
uncleaned content) and resolve them at commit 2. Under `--no-exit` the
CI job still passes, but the inline annotations on commit 1 would be
misleading.

### Why HashiCorp first instead of all brands at once

Proof-of-concept value. HashiCorp is the smallest cleanup (7 prose lines
plus 2 sidebar lines = 9 lines), zero FPs, zero ambiguity. Once the loop
(rule plus cleanup plus style-guide section) is proven,
[DOCS-188](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-188) appends the other
brands as additional commits to the same bundle.

### Brand-token sensitivity

The `swap:` table only matches:

- `Hashicorp` (capital H, lowercase rest), the actual wrong form in the
corpus.
- `HASHICORP` (all caps), defensive; doesn't appear in current corpus
but cheap to include.

`hashicorp` (all lowercase) is **not** in the swap table. The lowercase
form appears 49 times in URLs (`developer.hashicorp.com`,
`registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/...`,
`github.com/hashicorp/...`) and 6 times as Terraform provider sources
(`source = "hashicorp/kubernetes"`), all of which are correct lowercase
by convention. Vale's substitution rule scope ensures URLs and code
blocks are skipped, but skipping the rule entirely for `hashicorp`
(lowercase) is the explicit decision; if a prose typo of lowercase
"hashicorp" ever shows up, we'd catch it through `Vale.Spelling`
([DOCS-187](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-187)) instead.

### Self-reference in the style guide

The `### Brand names` section's example table needed `Hashicorp` and
`HashiCorp` as literal demonstration tokens. Wrapping them in backticks
(`` `Hashicorp` ``, `` `HashiCorp` ``) keeps Vale from flagging the
wrong-case example as a real violation. This is correct typography too:
demonstration tokens get code formatting.

### Manifest.json

Vale doesn't lint JSON, so the two `docs/manifest.json` entries are
fixed by direct edit rather than tool enforcement. The sidebar `path`
(`./admin/integrations/vault.md`) is unchanged; the title change does
not affect the page URL on coder.com. No redirect needed in
`coder/coder.com:redirects.json`.

### Pre-mortem

- **Generated docs noise**: `Coder.BrandNames` does not fire on
auto-generated `docs/reference/` content because no codersdk identifier
matches the swap pattern. Zero risk.
- **Future-additions friction**: adding GitHub to the swap table is one
YAML line and a cleanup commit. The bundling shape pays off here.
- **Disable footgun**: if a contributor needs to write the wrong casing
on purpose (quoting an external bug report verbatim, for example), they
can wrap the literal in backticks (already correct typography) or use
the per-line Vale skip comment.

</details>

Closes [DOCS-34](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-34).

---

*Filed via [Coder Agents](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/agents) on
Nick's behalf.*
 2026-07-08 11:43:29 -04:00
Nick Vigilante b95f2531b5 feat: populate docs prose style guide as a landing page plus subpages (#26632) 
Replace the `docs/.style/style-guide.md` scaffold with the populated
prose style guide,
structured as a `README.md` landing page plus one subpage per topic so
GitHub auto-renders the landing when readers open the style-guide
folder.

## Layout

```text
docs/.style/
  style-guide/
    README.md                          (landing: intro, section list, editing conventions, Vale enforcement)
    audience-and-scope.md              (one audience, one outcome, declared up front; canonical personas)
    voice-and-tone.md
    word-choice.md
    accessibility-and-inclusion.md     (new)
    capitalization-and-punctuation.md
    formatting.md                      (text formatting + block elements + screenshots sparingly)
    numbers-units-and-dates.md
    editor-setup.md                    (placeholder)
```

Every repo reference to the old path is rewired to the new path:
`AGENTS.md` (and its `CLAUDE.md` / `.cursorrules` symlinks),
`.claude/docs/DOCS_STYLE_GUIDE.md`,
`docs/about/contributing/documentation.md`, `docs/.style/README.md`,
`docs/.style/styles/Coder/README.md`, and a comment in
`.github/workflows/ci.yaml`. The touched paragraph in each of those
files is reformatted to one sentence per line per the touch-paragraph
rule (refer to [Conventions the guide
dogfoods](#conventions-the-guide-dogfoods)).

## What each page covers

- **Audience and scope** (new): every page targets **one audience
working toward one outcome**; the **install-vs-deploy Coder example**
(workspace user vs platform engineer); pick one audience per page (write
two pages and cross-link rather than tagging sections); pick one outcome
per page (`Configure SSO with Okta` is one outcome, `Configure SSO` is
not); declare audience and scope up front (the H1 names the outcome; the
first paragraph names the audience); **canonical Coder personas**
inlined as four primary (Dave the Developer, Ada the Infrastructure
Admin, Perry the Platform Engineer, Steven the Sponsor) and six
secondary (Melissa the Machine Learner, Tommy the Tester, Caitlin the
Citizen Developer, Felipe the FinOps, Sergio the Security Officer, Tara
the Team Leader), each with a `Coder surface:` line covering the
relevant CLI/workspace/template/RBAC surfaces.
- **Voice and tone**: address the reader directly, avoid first-person
singular, reserve first-person plural for **Coder Technologies the
company** (with an explicit ban on `we` for the product itself and on
combined `you and the docs`), active voice, present tense with a
**conditional/predictive `will` exception** (`If you do X, Y will
happen`), **no sentence-ending prepositions** with a clunky-exception
note.
- **Word choice**: Coder product and feature names with the **Coder CLI
always in backticks (`coder`)** rule, brand names with a parallel
**Terraform CLI in backticks (`terraform`)** rule, **Dev Container**
terminology (proper-noun specification vs lowercase instance, parallel
to Coder / workspace), **phrasal verbs and their noun forms generalized
as a table** (set up/setup, log in/login, sign in/sign-in, log
out/logout, back up/backup, roll out/rollout, start up/startup, shut
down/shutdown, with the `Quickstart` exception), `refer to` / `check
out` / `visit` over `see`, `Learn more` versus `Next steps` with an
**ableism rationale** (`steps` as a physical-mobility metaphor),
`tutorial` versus `walkthrough` with an **ableism rationale**,
**`select` over `click`**, **`Don&#39;t assume simplicity or
difficulty`** (covers both `simple`/`easy` and `complex`/`non-trivial`),
**`Avoid weasel words`** (vague attributions in the Wikipedia sense like
`many believe`, `experts agree`, `studies show`), plain language for
product actions with an **industry-term exception scope** for the Linux
`kill` command, the `SIGKILL` signal, and the `disabled` config flag
state.
- **Accessibility and inclusion** (new): WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the
minimum target with AAA as a stretch goal; heading structure (one H1 per
page, no skipped levels, **substantive content between headings**);
inclusive pronouns; inclusive-language substitutions including a
**dedicated `sanity check` row** with `smoke testing` / `confidence
testing` / `acceptance testing` alternatives; descriptive link text; alt
text and decorative-image conventions; **plain English for international
readers** (no idioms; common Latin abbreviations `e.g.`, `i.e.`, `etc.`,
`vs.`, and `et al.` allowed, less common ones not); page descriptions in
`docs/manifest.json` (the docs site does not yet support YAML front
matter); reading level; color contrast deferred to the docs site theme.
- **Capitalization and punctuation**: sentence-case headings, no
gerund-leading headings with **documented exceptions** (`Pricing`,
`Billing`, `Logging`, `String formatting`, etc.), **trailing heading
punctuation in three tiers** (periods and exclamation marks forbidden at
error severity, question marks allowed sparingly at suggestion severity,
characters inside backticks exempt for both), no em or en-dashes with a
**corrected example** showing parenthetical em-dash use rather than
series-joining, Oxford comma, US-style quotation, semicolons sparingly,
rare exclamation marks, numeric ranges.
- **Formatting**: text formatting (bold for UI with **explicit
greater-than separator rule for navigation paths**, italics for
emphasis, code font for identifiers presented as a **bulleted list**)
and block elements (code blocks with language fences plus **link to the
Prism supported-languages reference**, callouts with tightened
scenarios, tabs with the actual `` syntax and a **macOS/Linux/Windows
example**, lists with a **five-item prose-list cap rule** and an
**explicit terminal-punctuation rule** (complete sentences end in
periods, phrases completing a lead-in paragraph end in periods,
single-word labels carry no terminal punctuation, no mixing styles in
one list), tables with a **narrow-table guideline** that reconsiders the
structure when many columns are needed, links including the rule that
**non-docs codebase links also use relative paths**, images,
**screenshots sparingly** with a maintenance-burden rationale and an
adapted quote from Lorna Jane Mitchell&#39;s `Short tech writing style
guide for developers`), with cross-references to the accessibility page
for link text and alt text.
- **Numbers, units, and dates**: digits everywhere preference,
non-breaking space between number and unit with **separate pre-render
(Markdown source) and post-render (visible output) demonstrations** plus
a **window-shrink tip** for confirming the rule visually, `Month Day,
Year` date format, 12-hour time with AM/PM, ordinals exception.
- **Editor setup**: placeholder.

## Conventions the guide dogfoods

- **One sentence per line**. Source lines follow a one-sentence-per-line
policy: each sentence sits on its own Markdown source line, sentences
are not split across lines, and lines do not wrap to a fixed column
width. The same convention applies corpus-wide through an **incremental
touch-paragraph rule**: when a contributor edits any line inside a
paragraph, the whole paragraph is reformatted to one sentence per line
as part of the same edit. Bullet items, numbered list entries, and
blockquote lines are each their own paragraph for the rule. Headings,
fenced code blocks, and tables are out of scope. `markdownlint`&#39;s
`MD013` is already disabled, so the convention is editorial.
- **No navigational `see`**. Replaced with **refer to** (formal
default), **check out** (informal/tutorials), or **visit** (external
URLs). `See` is reserved for the observational meaning.
- **HTML entities for em-dashes inside demos**. The em-dash demo encodes
`—` / `–` so the source stays ASCII while the rendered output still
shows the character.
- **No semicolons in body prose**. Body prose prefers two sentences over
a semicolon. Semicolons survive only in heading and rule labels where
they act as separators.
- **Common Latin abbreviations allowed in own prose**. `e.g.`, `i.e.`,
`etc.`, `vs.`, and `et al.` (citation contexts) are fine. Less common
Latin abbreviations (`a priori`, `q.v.`, `viz.`, `n.b.`, `cf.`, `ibid.`)
are not. The rule covers punctuation too: prefer parentheses around
`e.g.` and `i.e.` clauses, one period when `etc.` ends a sentence, both
periods when `etc.` ends a parenthetical that ends a sentence.
- **No idioms or industry-jargon idioms**. `deep dive`, `paved path`,
etc. are rewritten in plain language.

## Rule conventions

Each rule pairs a rationale with **Do** / **Don&#39;t** blockquoted
examples and a parenthetical noting the Vale rule that enforces (or will
enforce) the policy. Documentation-only rules are explicitly labeled as
such. Substitution rules use tables.

## Out of scope

- Wiring any new Vale rule. Per-rule PRs land separately per the
rule-authoring doctrine in `docs/.style/README.md`.
- Editor setup page population.
- Redirecting `docs/about/contributing/documentation.md` to the
populated guide (needs a coordinated `coder.com` PR after merge).
- Trimming the `Writing Style` block in
`.claude/docs/DOCS_STYLE_GUIDE.md` and removing the `currently a
scaffold` framing in the agent docs.
- A separate demo PR for the callout types rendered against an existing
docs page.
- Sweeping navigational `see` out of other docs files. The new rule only
dogfoods on the style guide itself; a corpus-wide sweep is a separate
ticket.

## Validation

- `make fmt/markdown`: clean.
- `make lint/markdown`: 0 errors across 494 files.
- `./scripts/check_emdash.sh`: clean.
- Pre-commit-light: passes (fmt + lint + emdash + shellcheck + typos +
actionlint + migrations + helm).
- Dogfood scan: no first-person singular in own prose, no idioms, only
the five allowed Latin abbreviations in own prose, no `walkthrough` or
`Next steps` outside rule definitions and examples, no navigational
`see`, no `click` outside rule definitions and examples, no semicolons
in body prose.

<details>
<summary>CI flake note: <code>check-docs</code> (linkspector)</summary>

The `check-docs` job can fail intermittently on pre-existing external
links in `docs/about/contributing/documentation.md` (lines 29 and 30):
Merriam-Webster occasionally returns HTTP 403 to GitHub Actions runners
and Chicago Manual of Style can time out at 30s. Neither link is touched
by this PR. `docs/.style/` itself is in `.github/.linkspector.yml`
`excludedDirs`, and linkspector annotations confirm zero broken links
from the new pages.

</details>

Resolves DOCS-434.

---

*Filed via [Coder Agents](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/agents) on
Nick&#39;s behalf.*
 2026-06-25 21:11:39 +00:00
Nick Vigilante 6acf32701e fix: preserve Vale severity in CI annotations and add three-severity demo (#26587) 
Closes DOCS-426. Follow-up to
[#26586](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/26586) (DOCS-425, strip),
which merged first.

## Problem

The Vale problem matcher at `.github/vale-problem-matcher.json`
hard-codes `"severity": "warning"`. Every Vale finding renders as a
GitHub `warning` annotation, regardless of Vale's actual severity. Nick
observed this on PR [#25501](https://github.com/coder/coder/pull/25501):
error-level findings from `Coder.BrandNames` appear as warnings.

This collapsed the doctrine's three-severity ladder (`error` / `warning`
/ `suggestion`) into a single advisory channel for the reader of a PR
diff. This PR restores the ladder visually so contributors and reviewers
see each rule's intended severity.

## Root cause

GitHub Actions problem matchers expect either a regex capture group for
severity or a hard-coded severity. Vale's `--output=line` format
produces `path:line:col:rule:message` with severity stripped, so the
matcher had no severity to capture and fell back on the hard-coded
value.

## Fix

### Commit 1: severity rendering

Switch the Vale prose lint step to `vale --output=JSON` and pipe through
`jq` to emit GitHub workflow commands directly. Drop the problem matcher
file.

| Vale severity | GitHub workflow command |
|---|---|
| `suggestion` | `::notice::` |
| `warning` | `::warning::` |
| `error` | `::error::` |

Message bodies are URL-encoded for `%`, `\r`, and `\n` per the GitHub
Actions workflow command spec. The Vale step stays advisory
(`continue-on-error: true`, `vale --no-exit`); rendering becomes correct
but the step never fails the job.

### Commit 2: three-severity demo

Three throwaway `Coder.Demo*` rules at `level: suggestion`, `level:
warning`, and `level: error`, plus a
`docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md` file that triggers each rule
exactly once. Together with the rendering fix above, this PR's CI
surfaces three GitHub annotations in three distinct severities (notice,
warning, error). Use the Files Changed view to inspect rendering.

The demo files live permanently in `docs/.style/`, which is excluded
from coder.com. They re-trigger annotations only on PRs that touch the
demo file itself, so they don't pollute CI on day-to-day PRs.

## Sample output

<img width="1443" height="1293" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fb337315-7b55-40b3-9983-828b2d5399fc"
/>

<img width="1443" height="1293" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b02d575d-5905-4c6d-b145-ad5df6e04f11"
/>

## Out of scope

Blocking merge on `error`-level findings is the natural next step but is
sequenced as the **final** step of the prose-style rollout. It was
prototyped in this PR (commit 3, since backed out) and verified
end-to-end against the demo doc. The work moved to
[DOCS-433](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-433/block-merge-on-vale-error-level-findings-final-step-of-prose-style)
so the corpus of enabled rules is broad enough by the time the gate
lands that it catches real violations rather than novelty failures from
a single rule.

## Expected CI state on this PR

`lint-docs` passes. The three demo annotations render at lines 17 / 19 /
21 of `docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md` as `::notice::`,
`::warning::`, and `::error::` respectively. The `::error::` annotation
does not fail the job because the Vale step is still advisory under this
PR.

Local verification of the rendering pipeline:

```
$ printf '%s\n' 'docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md' \
    | xargs -d '\n' vale --no-exit --output=JSON \
    | jq -r '...'
::notice  file=docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md,line=17,col=3,title=Coder.DemoSuggestion::[Demo] Suggestion-level Vale annotation.
::warning file=docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md,line=19,col=3,title=Coder.DemoWarning::[Demo] Warning-level Vale annotation.
::error   file=docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md,line=21,col=3,title=Coder.DemoError::[Demo] Error-level Vale annotation.
```

<details>
<summary>Decision log</summary>

- **Workflow commands vs custom Vale template + updated matcher**: chose
workflow commands because the transform is a 10-line jq pipeline with no
extra files to maintain, and it bypasses GitHub Actions problem-matcher
limitations entirely. The custom-template option would have kept the
matcher infrastructure but required an additional Go template file under
`.github/`.
- **Throwaway demo rules vs reusing existing rules**: chose throwaway
because we wanted each severity to fire deterministically from a single
unambiguous marker. Reusing existing rules would couple the demo to
corpus content and obscure the signal.
- **Demo persists vs drops before merge**: persists. The merge-gate
constraint that originally forced the demo to drop is gone (deferred to
DOCS-433). The four demo files live in `docs/.style/`, excluded from
coder.com, and only annotate PRs that touch them. They double as a
permanent canary so a future regression in severity rendering surfaces
immediately on whichever PR introduces it, and as the verification
artifact DOCS-433 uses when re-installing the merge gate.
- **`docs/.style/_vale-annotation-demo.md` filename**: underscore prefix
follows Coder convention for files that exist outside the normal docs
taxonomy. Not surfaced on coder.com/docs because `docs/.style/` is
excluded from the manifest, deploy workflow, and docs preview.
- **Merge-block deferred to DOCS-433**: the rendering fix and the merge
gate are independent changes. Shipping the rendering first lets
contributors see the three-severity ladder while the rule catalogue is
still small and the false-positive policy hasn't been stress-tested yet.
The gate lands as the final step of the rollout, after the catalogue is
broad enough that the gate covers real prose-style policy rather than
one rule's enforcement.

</details>

---
*Filed via [Coder Agents](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/agents) on
Nick's behalf.*
 2026-06-23 12:55:15 -04:00
Nick Vigilante 182bdc871a docs: scaffold docs/.style for the prose style guide (#25466) 
Adds a private contributor-tooling directory at `docs/.style/` that will
host the canonical prose style guide and the custom Vale rules used to
enforce it. The directory's contents do not deploy to `coder.com/docs`.

This PR is the scaffold only. The Vale configuration, the rule set, and
the per-rule style-guide sections all land in follow-up PRs.

## What changes

- New `docs/.style/` directory with:
  - `README.md` explaining the convention
  - `style-guide.md` as a table-of-contents scaffold
- `styles/Coder/README.md` placeholder so Git tracks the empty Vale
rules dir
- `.github/workflows/deploy-docs.yaml`: skip the workflow on
`.style`-only pushes, and exclude `.style` paths from the
surgical-reindex git diff on mixed commits. Defense-in-depth on top of
the manifest-driven coder.com routing.
- `.github/.linkspector.yml`: add `docs/.style` to `excludedDirs`
- `AGENTS.md` and `.claude/docs/DOCS_STYLE_GUIDE.md`: cross-link to the
new style guide for agents

## Verification

- `make pre-commit-light` clean (`fmt/markdown`, `lint/markdown`,
`lint/typos`, `lint/emdash`, `lint/actions/actionlint`,
`lint/shellcheck`).
- `markdown-table-formatter --check` and `markdownlint-cli2` both
process the new files (existing globs are `find docs -name '*.md'`).
- `actionlint` clean on the modified workflow.
- coder.com exclusion works because route discovery and Algolia indexing
are manifest-driven; this directory is not in `docs/manifest.json`. The
workflow changes are defense in depth.

<details>
<summary>Implementation plan and decision log</summary>

### Decisions

- **Location**: `docs/.style/` (leading dot, mirrors `.github/`,
`.vscode/`, `.claude/`). Vale's `StylesPath` will be
`docs/.style/styles/`; `.vale.ini` lands at repo root in a follow-up.
- **Existing public page `docs/about/contributing/documentation.md`**:
untouched in this PR. Nick's separate information-architecture rework
will redirect it to GitHub at the right time.
- **Placeholder for empty `styles/Coder/`**: real `README.md`, not
`.gitkeep`. Discoverable on GitHub, lints with the existing tooling,
lists the planned starter rules.
- **CONTRIBUTING.md**: not touched. It's a 2-line redirect to
`coder.com/docs/CONTRIBUTING`; bloating it would defeat the redirect.
- **`.claude/docs/DOCS_STYLE_GUIDE.md`**: kept as the structure/research
companion. A blockquote at the top points at the new canonical prose
guide.

### coder.com exclusion mechanism (verified by inspection)

Direct inspection of `coder/coder.com`:

- Route discovery in
[`src/utils/docs/docs.ts`](https://github.com/coder/coder.com/blob/master/src/utils/docs/docs.ts)
iterates `routes` from `docs/manifest.json`. Files not in the manifest
never become routes.
- The Algolia surgical indexer at
[`src/utils/algoliaDocs/surgical.ts`](https://github.com/coder/coder.com/blob/master/src/utils/algoliaDocs/surgical.ts)
explicitly skips paths not in the manifest, incrementing `pathsSkipped`.

Net result: not adding anything from `docs/.style/` to `manifest.json`
is the only thing that has to be true for the exclusion to work. The
`deploy-docs.yaml` tweaks are defense in depth.

### deploy-docs.yaml changes (pre-mortem)

1. Trigger path negation `!docs/.style/**` skips the workflow on
`.style`-only pushes. GitHub Actions only suppresses when every changed
file matches a negation, so mixed commits still trigger.
2. The git-diff pathspec `:(exclude)docs/.style/**` drops `.style` paths
from the surgical-reindex payload on mixed commits.

Risks considered:

- **Test contract**: `.github/workflows/test-deploy-docs-diff.sh` only
exercises the downstream awk parser, not the git-diff invocation. The
exclusion happens at git-diff time; the parser sees the same
`<status>\0<path>\0` format. No test change needed.
- **First push to a brand-new branch**: the workflow falls back to
whole-branch reindex when `BEFORE_SHA` is all zeros. Whole-branch
reindex re-extracts records from the manifest, which still excludes
`.style` files because they are not in the manifest.
- **Workflow-dispatch**: takes the whole-branch path; same reasoning.
Safe.

### Why a real README in `styles/Coder/` instead of `.gitkeep`

It explains intent, lists the upcoming rules, and lints with the
existing tooling. The cost is one extra Markdown file; the upside is
that a contributor browsing GitHub sees the plan without clicking
around.

</details>

---

*Filed via [Coder Agents](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/agents) on
Nick's behalf.*


Linear: DOCS-180
 2026-06-17 13:19:37 +00:00