passo.uno

Whoever speaks badly, thinks badly and lives badly.

Tenth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

I’m seeing more instances of docs and README files addressing agents directly, as in “Hey, if you’re an agent, follow these instructions”.

Ninth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

A friend of mine recently lost her job in a layoff.

While chatting with Sarah Deaton about the formats agents could use to talk to each other, we got to questions that might sound obvious: why should machines (say, LLMs) communicate with each other like we do?

Docs as code used to mean editing docs as if they were code.

In my predictions for 2030 I wrote that tech writers would be using specialized LLMs, running locally on powerful hardware.

Eighth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

I joined Patrick Bosek on the Behind the Docs podcast to talk about what AI actually means for technical writing.

Back in 2024 I wrote that AI helps me remove boring work at the margins.

AI is inflicting a proliferation of tools, in the utensils’ sense.

Docs are often thought of as a purely functional artifact, a packet of content that, when it works, it’s not remembered at all.

Seventh episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

Three years ago I published a high fantasy map of technical writing.

If someone asked me to set up a team in charge of software documentation, I would not hire for specific roles or cookie-cut job descriptions.

Sixth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

Not a month goes by without someone claiming they’ve killed tech writing.

At the end of The writing was always the cheap part, I alluded to the fact that tech writers need to pick up new habits and skills, but didn’t dig into what that entails.

Last December, quite unrealistically, I took a solemn oath: I would not write again about AI for at least another year.

Fifth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

I like cooking recipes.

Hey you, Yes, you, who are thinking about not hiring a technical writer this year or, worse, erased one or more technical writing positions last year because of AI.

Fourth episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

Instead of writing my tech comms predictions for next year like I did in 2024, I’ve written a fictionalized account of my day as a technical writer in 2030.

Third episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

Code Wiki, a new AI tool by Google, claims to generate a complete set of docs, including diagrams, from code repos.

The dam of AI-written doc contributions might be about to break.

I really enjoyed speaking at Write the Docs Berlin this year.

Second episode of the AI & Docs podcast series is up!

If you’ve been following the AI space for a while, the MCP acronym might be a familiar sight: it’s an open standard for connecting large language models (LLMs) to tools and data.

Kate Mueller’s The Not-Boring Tech Writer is one of my favorite tech writing podcasts.

It’s official!

You might have read Annie Mueller’s post poking fun at developers’ tutorials.

I sometimes lurk on /r/technicalwriting to gauge the interests and sentiments of the community.

Docs are a product.

I’ve been noticing a trend among developers that use AI: they are increasingly writing and structuring docs in context folders so that the AI powered tools they use can build solutions autonomously and with greater accuracy.

Today I discussed how tech writers can use AI at work with Tom Johnson and Scott Abel.

I’ve been writing documentation and technical articles for more than a decade now.

Strategy, Michael Porter wrote, is choosing what not to do.

This last weekend I created another LLM-powered tool, Impersonaid (all puns intended).

A colleague recently asked how I find time to blog about technical writing after hours.

I spoke at the betterCode() ArchDoc 2025 conference a couple of weeks ago about the Seven Action Documentation model.

We all want to do a good job.

While some developers wrinkle their noses at the sight of Copilot and similar AI-powered tools, tech writers find them to be great sidekicks.

I’ve recently upgraded some of the hardware I use for work and leisure, so it’s a good time to refresh my list of tech writing gear.

In what is tantamount to a vulgar display of power, social media has been flooded with AI-generated images that mimic the style of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime.

Demoralized by the advent of LLMs, I see tech writing communities break ranks and flee.

The part of my brain that rages against injustice stirs like a slumbering dragon when I read the words “Native English”.

This past weekend I’ve been experimenting with AI-assisted coding to port basic docs-as-code elements to old operating systems and platforms, such as the venerable Intel 386.