Write User Guide

Write User Guide

Skill for authoring user-guide pages in a Great Docs documentation site. User guides provide narrative documentation (tutorials, conceptual explanations, and task walkthroughs) that complement the auto-generated API reference.

Quick start

mkdir -p user_guide
cat > user_guide/00-introduction.qmd << 'EOF'
---
title: "Introduction"
guide-section: "Getting Started"
tags: [Getting Started]
---

# Introduction

Welcome to the project. This guide walks you through...
EOF

great-docs build

Skill directory structure

skills/write-user-guide/
├── SKILL.md
└── references/
    ├── page-anatomy.md
    └── writing-guidelines.md

When to use this skill

Core concepts

File naming convention

Every page in user_guide/ must have a two-digit numeric prefix that controls sidebar ordering:

user_guide/
├── 00-introduction.qmd     # appears first
├── 01-installation.qmd
├── 02-quickstart.qmd
├── 03-authoring-qmd-files.qmd
└── 04-writing-docstrings.qmd

Great Docs strips the prefix for clean URLs: 00-introduction.qmd → user-guide/introduction.html.

QMD frontmatter

Every user-guide page starts with YAML frontmatter:

---
title: "Writing Docstrings"
guide-section: "Getting Started"
tags: [API, Content]
---

Required keys:

Optional keys:

Guide sections

Pages with the same guide-section value are grouped together in the sidebar under a collapsible section heading:

Getting Started
├── Introduction
├── Installation
└── Quick Start
Site Content
├── Authoring QMD Files
├── Writing Docstrings
└── User Guides

If no guide-section is set, the page appears at the top level.

Page body structure

A well-structured page follows this outline:

# Page Title

Opening paragraph: 2-3 sentences explaining what this page covers
and why the reader cares.

## First Major Section

Narrative prose. Keep paragraphs short (3-5 sentences).

### Subsection

More detail. Use tables, code blocks, and callouts to break up text.

## Second Major Section

...

Guidelines:

• Start every page with a single # heading matching the title.
• Use ## for major sections, ### for subsections.
• Keep the hierarchy flat; avoid #### if possible.
• Lead each section with a sentence explaining what follows.
• End with a summary or "next steps" when appropriate.

Callouts

Quarto callouts highlight important information:

:::{.callout-tip}

## Pro tip

You can combine `guide-section` with `tags` to make pages
discoverable from multiple angles.
:::

:::{.callout-warning}

## Watch out

Renaming a page file changes its URL. Update any cross-references.
:::

:::{.callout-note}
This feature requires Great Docs 0.8 or later.
:::

Available types: note, tip, warning, caution, important.

Executable code cells

Embed live Python examples that run during the build:

```{python}
import great_docs
gd = great_docs.GreatDocs()
print(gd.project_path)
```

{python} vs {.python}: this distinction is critical.

• {python} (no dot) creates an executable code cell. Quarto runs it through the Jupyter kernel during the build and captures the output.
• {.python} (with a dot) creates a display-only code block. Quarto syntax-highlights it but never executes it.

Use {python} when the output matters (tables, plots, printed values). Use {.python} for illustrative snippets where execution is unnecessary or undesirable.

Additional cell-level controls:

• Use #| eval: false to show code without executing it.
• Use #| echo: false to show only the output.

Table previews and explorers

When a page involves sample datasets or transformed DataFrames, use the built-in table widgets instead of raw print() output.

Shortcodes (for static data files in assets/data/):

{{< tbl-preview file="assets/data/students.csv" >}}
{{< tbl-explorer file="assets/data/students.csv" >}}

Python API (for DataFrames produced in executable cells):

```{python}
from great_docs import tbl_preview, tbl_explorer

tbl_preview(df)           # compact head/tail preview
tbl_explorer(df)          # interactive: sort, filter, paginate
```

Use tbl-preview (or tbl_preview()) for a quick glance at a dataset. Use tbl-explorer (or tbl_explorer()) when readers need to sort, search, or paginate the data. Both accept Pandas DataFrames, Polars DataFrames, and file paths (CSV, TSV, Parquet, Arrow, JSONL).

Cross-references

Link to other pages in the site:

See the [Configuration](../user-guide/configuration.qmd) page.
See the [API reference](../reference/GreatDocs.qmd) page.

Use relative paths from the rendered output location (great-docs/user-guide/), not the source.

Images and assets

Place images in assets/ at the project root:

![Architecture diagram](../assets/architecture.png)

Great Docs copies the assets/ directory into the build automatically.

Workflows

Adding a new page

Task Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Choose a filename
- [ ] Step 2: Write frontmatter
- [ ] Step 3: Write content
- [ ] Step 4: Build and preview

Step 1: Pick the next numeric prefix. If the last file is 08-user-guides.qmd, name your file 09-new-topic.qmd.

Step 2: Add frontmatter with title, guide-section, and optional tags.

Step 3: Write the body using the page structure guidelines above.

Step 4: Run great-docs build && great-docs preview and check the sidebar ordering and rendered content.

Reorganizing existing pages

1. Rename files to adjust numeric prefixes.
2. Update guide-section values to regroup.
3. Rebuild. Great Docs regenerates the sidebar automatically.
4. Check for broken cross-references.

Converting a README into a guide page

1. Copy the README content into a new .qmd file.
2. Add frontmatter with title and guide-section.
3. Replace any GitHub-flavored Markdown extensions with Quarto equivalents (e.g., > [!NOTE] → :::{.callout-note}).
4. Rebuild and verify.

Gotchas

1. Numeric prefixes control ordering by default. Without them, pages sort alphabetically. Alternatively, you can omit prefixes and define an explicit page order in great-docs.yml.
2. Don't skip numbers. Gaps are fine (01, 03, 05) but large jumps make it hard to insert pages later.
3. Title must match the # heading. If title: "Foo" but the body starts with # Bar, the sidebar says "Foo" but the page says "Bar".
4. guide-section is case-sensitive. "Getting Started" and "getting started" create separate sections.
5. Don't nest directories. All pages must be directly in user_guide/, not in subdirectories.
6. Hyphens, not underscores, in filenames. Great Docs converts underscores to hyphens in URLs, so my_page.qmd becomes my-page.html.
7. Lists need a blank line before them. A bullet or numbered list that immediately follows a paragraph (no blank line) will not be parsed as a list by Quarto; it renders as plain text.