doc-atoms
Explanatory documentation as atoms — tutorials, explanations, runbooks, how-tos, and reference guides. The narrative/teaching catalog of the ecosystem.
doc-atoms is a *-Atoms catalog in the Convergent Systems ecosystem. It defines what exists in its domain — typed, versioned, machine-readable, composable, and open — so runtimes (and humans) can stand on shared infrastructure instead of reinventing it.
What this catalog is (and is not)
doc-atoms holds explanatory content. Tutorials teach. Explanations clarify. Runbooks walk an operator through a procedure. How-tos answer a focused task. Reference guides organize material for lookup.
doc-atoms is not schema-atoms. That distinction is load-bearing:
schema-atoms |
doc-atoms |
|
|---|---|---|
| Atom types | spec, schema |
tutorial, explanation, runbook, how-to, reference-guide |
| Force | Normative — defines what conformance requires | Explanatory — narrates, teaches, illustrates |
| Versioning | Versioned and amended via a defined process | Versioned, but updated freely as the subject moves |
| If it conflicts with a spec | Cannot — it is the spec | Spec wins; the doc gets fixed |
Per atoms-spec/v1.1.0 Part II: "Specs are normative and versioned and amended. Documentation is explanatory, narrates or teaches, and is not normative."
Structure
doc-atoms/
├── ATOMS.yml # Catalog manifest (spec_version: atoms-spec/v1.1.0)
├── documents/ # Compositions — assembled documents
├── docs/ # Human-readable docs about this catalog itself
├── exports/ # CI-generated machine-readable exports
├── governance/ # Governance atoms (higher-quorum signing)
├── keys/ # Per-catalog signing keys (if used)
├── schemas/ # Catalog-specific JSON Schemas
├── scripts/ # Validate / build-exports
├── web/ # doc-atoms.com site
└── infra/ # Terraform — Cloudflare Pages
Atom types
tutorial— guided learning, opinionated path from zeroexplanation— clarifying narrative, the "why" behind a conceptrunbook— operational procedure, ordered steps for a known scenariohow-to— focused task answer, problem-shapedreference-guide— lookup-shaped, organized for non-linear reading
Runtime consumers
aish, olympus
How to consume
Machine-readable exports are published in exports/ on every release:
exports/manifest.json— lightweight discovery (name, version, counts)exports/catalog.json— full catalog dump (every atom, composition)
Exports are deterministic, signed, and versioned. See ATOMS.yml for the manifest and the conformance spec.
How to contribute
- Read
ATOMS.ymlto understand the catalog's atom types and compositions. - Add a new atom under the appropriate type directory, or a composition under
documents/<slug>/. - Confirm the change is explanatory — narrative, teaching, operational guidance. If it is normative (a contract a runtime must conform to), it belongs in
schema-atoms, not here. - Open a PR. CI validates schema, references, and exports.
- Larger structural changes go through the XAIP process.
Ecosystem
- Federation: convergent-systems.co
- Spec: github.com/convergent-systems-co/atoms-spec —
atoms-spec/v1.1.0 - Tools: github.com/convergent-systems-co/atoms-tools
- Umbrella: github.com/convergent-systems-co/atoms — all catalogs as submodules
- Sibling catalog: schema-atoms — normative specs and JSON Schemas
License
Dual-licensed:
- Code — Apache-2.0, see
LICENSE - Data (atom content) — CC-BY-4.0, see
LICENSE-data