bradleygolden

# The Elixir Library Documentation Manifesto

Principles from direct response copywriting adapted for technical library documentation. These aren't theories—they're proven principles for getting developers to understand, adopt, and successfully use your library.

---

## The ten foundational laws of library documentation

**1. You cannot create need—only channel it.** Developers arrive with existing problems. Your job is to show how your library solves what they're already trying to solve. Research the actual Stack Overflow questions, ElixirForum threads, and GitHub issues that lead people to need your solution. Use their exact terminology.

ChristianAlexander

Setup Steps

Workflow File

Add copilot-setup-steps.yml to your .github/workflows directory so Copilot Coding Agent doesn’t get lost trying to set up Elixir and Erlang.

This also ensures a postgres database is running, which is helpful for Phoenix apps out of the box.

Dependencies are cached to make the agent start up quickly, as well as saving on metered GitHub Actions compute time.

Copilot Instructions

gimenete

import z from "zod";

export async function safeFetch<T>(
  schema: z.Schema<T>,
  input: RequestInfo,
  init?: RequestInit
): Promise<T> {
  const response = await fetch(input, init);

  if (!response.ok) {

yanofsky

This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or
distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled
binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
means.

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors
of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the
software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit

jlong

var parser = document.createElement('a');
parser.href = "http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash";

parser.protocol; // => "http:"
parser.hostname; // => "example.com"
parser.port;     // => "3000"
parser.pathname; // => "/pathname/"
parser.search;   // => "?search=test"
parser.hash;     // => "#hash"
parser.host;     // => "example.com:3000"