Documentation that Describes the Process Flow for Contributors - Putting the Pieces Together

[emaralive]

Note

This is a placeholder for further discussion, information collection and actions to be taken. At the moment, I'm just front loading some of the backstory of how we arrived at this point in time and will update this discussion when I have more available time.

Currently, there is information that is missing as to the description of how the process flow should work. The current documentation within the Contributors handbook, i.e., Contribute to documentation chapter, does not cover the entire process flow. IIRC, the documentation was published prior to the creation of the bp-documentation repository and there hasn't been any attempt to update said document to include the entire flow.

Up until today (September 3, 2025) the documentation effort was supported by less than a handful of individuals that had intrinsic/esoteric knowledge due to the way some of the information was shared and applied. This knowledge came from conversations/discussions during the biweekly (every 2 weeks) documentation meetings (currently suspended until further notice on August 17, 2025) whereby bits and pieces of of information may have disclosed during the summation/meeting minutes that were published on the BP Team Updates site. Today (September 3, 2025), @Shekhar0109 submitted 3 Pull Requests that appear to be in accordance with (IAW) the documentation that is currently published in the Contributor handbook and I had to share the missing information in one of the Pull Request (see PR 419).

Long story shorter, this discussion represents a placeholder for the inclusion of missing information that should be made available via:

• Contributor handbook
• Wiki or GH pages in this repo
• All of the above

To be Updated when more Information is Available

Note

Reminder to myself to describe the manifest.json file. This file may fall to the wayside which will depend on the final documentation tool that will be eventually selected. The current use is the method in which some of the current WordPress Handbooks, e.g., Advanced Administrator Handbook (Web, Source), utilizes to identify chapters & subchapters for the Table of Contents (TOC). Additionally, need to describe the process for creating links to be placed in the Codex to redirect to the updated content which is currently the source files (.md), these redirects should change to the Web version of the documentation when that occurs.

Creating a New Issue

(1) Migrate task

This issue was used during Phase 1 of the documentation process to identify topics of interest that will be updated to describe the current BuddyPress versions, e.g., versions 12.0+. This was used in conjunction with a file known as [Codex pages](https://github.com/buddypress/bp-documentation/tree/version_1/data#codex-pages).

(2) Add task

This issue should be used when a new standalone file (.md) is required. That is, when content that is not covered by an existing Issue (open or closed).

(3) Ignore task

This issue was used during Phase 1 of the documentation process to identify topics that will remain in the BuddyPress Codex (not to be migrated) which typically represent content for version around 1.7 . This was used in conjunction with a file known as [Codex pages](https://github.com/buddypress/bp-documentation/tree/version_1/data#codex-pages).