Documentation decisions
Teams often ask the same question: what should be public documentation, and what should stay private documentation. This page gives a practical way to decide.
For founder-led teams, the right starting point is usually clear public docs for customer-facing workflows, then private docs only where access really needs restriction.
Start here checklist
Public vs private documentation affects onboarding speed, support load, and team maintenance effort. A clear split makes docs easier to use and easier to maintain.
Public docs guidance helps users self-serve common tasks. Private docs are better for internal process notes, confidential material, and restricted operational content.
Use these steps as a documentation checklist before publishing or restricting any page.
Step 1 to 3: classify the page
Step 4 to 5: validate operations
Most teams can start with this simple split, then adjust as the product and team grow.
Public documentation works best for
Getting started, setup, product user guides, API basics, and common troubleshooting.
Private documentation works best for
Internal process docs, security runbooks, confidential planning, and restricted operations.
Public docs benefit
Users can self-serve and support can share stable links instead of rewriting answers.
Private docs benefit
Teams can include sensitive implementation detail without exposing internal context.
Public docs risk to manage
Outdated pages can confuse users, so ownership and update cadence must be clear.
Private docs risk to manage
Important user-facing knowledge can become hard to discover if everything stays internal.
If your priority is publishing public product docs with low overhead, hosted delivery is usually the practical starting point.
For implementation detail, see public product documentation. For writing patterns and structure, use the guides section. If you are comparing options, review alternatives.
Public documentation is accessible to anyone, usually for customer-facing product usage. Private documentation is restricted to specific users or teams for internal or sensitive content.
Start with pages that unblock users: onboarding, setup, common tasks, and troubleshooting. These usually provide the fastest support impact.
Usually yes, but keep the split clear. Public docs for user-facing workflows, private docs for restricted operational detail.
No. Hosted.md is focused on public documentation workflows for founders and small teams.
Start with pricing to see whether the hosted model matches your documentation workflow.
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