Use the handbook

About the handbook

The Doist handbook is our central source of truth for all documentation.

It houses documents that Doisters rely on to do their day-to-day work:

  • Guidelines

  • Policies

  • Processes

  • Evergreen specs

  • Team-specific information

  • Anything else that is hard coded into the company DNA

The handbook isn't designed for documents that serve a purpose for a limited amount of time (for example: DO outlines, email or website copy). If you're creating these types of documents, save them in a Google doc.

Get Started: Outline Resources

If you're just getting to know the new handbook and platform, we suggest reviewing the following:

Writing and editing

All Doisters are encouraged to create and edit documentation directly in Outline. There is no formal peer review process in Outline so you can use comments to collaborate on suggested changes to current documentation.

If a new document will require a significant amount of collaboration with others you can also consider using Google Docs to create the document and leverage the suggestions features, then download the document in a markdown file and add it as a file in Outline.


When editing a new document, by default you will need to click the "Edit" button in the top right corner of the UI. This is designed to create some friction in the editing process and decrease unintentional errors. However, you can disable this feature in your user settings.

Groups

Groups are a convenient way to tag entire teams on a request for approval or comment and adjust permissions for teams. Currently, we have groups created for each team. Additional groups may be added over time.

Templates

You can create templates in Outline to allow creating consistent documentation, or setup documents that often need to contain repeating information such as a set of tasks. Several templates are already saved in the Templates tab (top right and bottom left of UI) and you can add more over time.

Search

Outline's search is powered by an LLM that will summarize the response to your questions based on what it finds in the handbook and provide links to the source documents.

Get more help

If you need more help with the Doist handbook, reference the Outline Getting Started Guide or contact @Chase Warrington in #Doist Documentation.