How to Use Cody by Sourcegraph for Documentation from Code
Auto-generate documentation from existing codebases using Cody by Sourcegraph — README files, API references, architecture docs, and onboarding guides. Covers keeping docs in sync with code changes.
Implementation Steps
- 1
Scan codebase structure
Identify: entry points, public APIs, key modules, configuration files, and dependency graph.
- 2
Generate module-level documentation
For each module: purpose, public interface, usage examples, dependencies, and common patterns.
- 3
Create architecture overview
Generate system diagram description, data flow documentation, and component interaction maps.
- 4
Build onboarding guide
Create step-by-step setup guide: prerequisites, installation, configuration, first task walkthrough.
- 5
Set up CI-based doc regeneration
Trigger doc regeneration on code changes. Diff against previous docs to create changelog.
Expected Metrics
Ehsan's Recommendation
The best documentation is the documentation that exists. Most codebases have zero docs because nobody has time to write them. Cody by Sourcegraph generates 80% accurate docs from code in hours. An engineer spending 2 hours reviewing and correcting AI-generated docs produces better output than that same engineer spending 2 weeks writing docs from scratch — because they actually finish.
Ehsan Jahandarpour
AI Growth Strategist & Fractional CMO
Forbes Top 20 Growth Hacker · TEDx Speaker · 716 Academic Citations · Ex-Microsoft · CMO at FirstWave (ASX:FCT) · Forbes Communications Council