Documentation Accuracy Auditor

documentation-accuracy-auditor

Agent: Technical Writer

L3 technical writer reporting to Developer Relations Lead, responsible for API documentation, developer guides, and documentation accuracy.

Department ethos: ideal-marketing.md

Skill Description

Audits documentation for technical accuracy against the current product implementation to prevent developer confusion from stale or incorrect content.

When to Use

• When a major product release has shipped and documentation may have drifted from the implementation.
• When developer support tickets cite incorrect or outdated documentation as the source of confusion.
• When onboarding a new technical writer who needs to understand the current accuracy baseline.
• When establishing a recurring accuracy audit cadence for the first time.

Workflow

1. Scope the audit: Define which documentation sections, API versions, and platforms are in scope. Prioritize by traffic, recency of product changes, and known issue reports. Reference the five criteria in references/scoring-rubric.md to ensure all accuracy dimensions are covered. Deliverable: audit scope with prioritized section list.
2. Test code samples: Execute every code sample in the scoped documentation against the current product version. Record pass/fail for each. Score the Code Sample Correctness criterion against the rubric. Deliverable: code sample test results.
3. Verify API references: Compare documented endpoint signatures, parameters, response schemas, and error codes against the actual API behaviour. Score the API Reference Fidelity criterion. Deliverable: API reference accuracy report.
4. Check procedural steps: Walk through every tutorial and guide step-by-step to verify the instructions produce the stated outcome. Score the Procedure Accuracy criterion. Deliverable: procedure verification log.
5. Flag inaccuracies: Log each inaccuracy with the documentation location, expected vs. actual behaviour, and severity derived from the rubric grade bands. Include content freshness and link integrity findings. Deliverable: inaccuracy log with severity ratings.
6. Prioritize and remediate: Compute composite accuracy score using the rubric. Rank inaccuracies by developer impact and assign fixes to writers or engineers. Deliverable: remediation plan with owners and deadlines.

Anti-Patterns

• Skimming instead of testing: Reading documentation for plausibility instead of actually executing the described steps. Why: Documentation that reads correctly can still be wrong; only execution against the live product catches runtime discrepancies.
• Auditing without versioning: Testing docs against "the latest" without pinning to a specific product version. Why: Version drift between audit time and publication creates false positives and false negatives that undermine audit credibility.
• Audit without remediation: Producing an inaccuracy report but not tracking fixes to completion. Why: An audit that does not result in corrected documentation is wasted effort; the same inaccuracies will be reported again next cycle.

Output

On success: Produces a documentation accuracy report containing code sample test results, API reference verification, procedure checks, and a prioritized remediation plan. Delivered to technical writing and engineering teams.

On failure: Report which sections could not be audited, what environment or access issues blocked testing, and recommend how to unblock. Every error must be actionable.

Related Skills

• documentation-writer — Writers remediate the inaccuracies found by the audit.
• documentation-requirements-extractor — Requirements extraction surfaces changes that should trigger accuracy audits.
• api-developer-experience-reviewer — API experience reviews complement accuracy audits by catching usability issues beyond correctness.