Barkly Dev.to Automation
Functional Requirements Document
Project: Barkly Dev.to Organization: Barkly Labs Document Type: Functional Requirements Status: Draft — v0.1 Purpose: Automatically transform structured Barkly project information into human-readable Dev.to publications while preserving human control over publication.
1. Purpose
Barkly Dev.to shall provide an automated publication pipeline capable of examining Barkly Labs repositories and documentation, determining what information is relevant to a publication, assembling that information into a coherent technical article, validating the article against Barkly requirements, and preparing or publishing the resulting article to Dev.to.
The system shall reduce the repetitive cognitive and administrative work involved in documenting and communicating software projects.
The system shall not require contributors to manually reconstruct project context every time a publication is created.
2. Core Principle
Barkly Dev.to shall follow the principle:
Computers should handle the hard, repetitive work so humans can focus on understanding, deciding, creating, and communicating.
The system should therefore prioritize:
human-readable output
structured project information
automation
transparency
reproducibility
human review
contributor autonomy
reusable documentation
The system shall not represent automated content as having been manually authored when it was generated by the pipeline.
3. Problem Statement
Software projects contain information across many different locations:
source code
README files
Barkly Docs
changelogs
Git history
configuration
requirements
architecture documentation
functional requirements
technical documentation
project metadata
Manually gathering this information into a coherent publication requires repeatedly locating, reading, interpreting, organizing, and formatting the same information.
Barkly Dev.to shall automate this process.
4. System Context
Git Repository
│
▼
Barkly Docs
│
┌────────────┼────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
Project Git Changes
Structure History / Docs
│ │ │
└────────────┼────────────┘
▼
Barkly Dev.to Engine
│
▼
Article Generation
│
▼
Barkly Validation
│
▼
Human Review
│
▼
Dev.to
5. Functional Requirements
FR-001 — Repository Discovery
The system shall accept a Barkly Labs repository as an input source.
The system shall identify relevant project files and directories without requiring every file to be explicitly specified by the user.
FR-002 — Barkly Docs Discovery
The system shall detect Barkly Docs within a repository.
The system shall identify available documentation surfaces including, where present:
project
principles
components
endpoints
functions
classes
modules
imports
lifecycle
git
changelog
The system shall treat Barkly Docs as a structured source of project information.
FR-003 — Project Identification
The system shall determine the project name from available repository or Barkly Docs metadata.
The system shall preserve the project's documented name rather than inventing an alternative name.
FR-004 — Project Purpose Discovery
The system shall locate available descriptions of:
project purpose
project goals
problem being addressed
intended users
documented principles
project scope
The system shall use documented information when available.
FR-005 — Architecture Discovery
The system shall identify documented architectural information.
Relevant sources may include:
architecture documentation
component documentation
module documentation
lifecycle documentation
endpoint documentation
project structure
The system shall use this information to explain how the project works.
FR-006 — Change Discovery
The system shall identify relevant project changes.
Possible sources shall include:
Git commits
changelogs
release information
modified documentation
modified source files
The system shall be capable of generating a publication focused on a specific change or group of changes.
FR-007 — Evidence Collection
The system shall associate generated claims with available project evidence.
Evidence may include:
documentation
source files
Git commits
configuration
tests
changelogs
project metadata
The system shall avoid presenting unsupported project details as documented facts.
6. Article Generation
FR-008 — Article Structure
The system shall generate a human-readable article structure.
A generated article may contain:
Title
Introduction
Why the project exists
What changed
How it works
Technical implementation
Design decisions
Barkly Standard relationship
Examples
What was learned
What's next
Project links
The exact sections shall be determined by the information available.
The system shall not generate empty sections when sufficient information is unavailable.
FR-009 — Human-Oriented Explanation
The system shall transform technical project information into explanations understandable to a human reader.
The system shall prioritize explanation over raw information dumping.
For example:
SOURCE:
src/audit/paypal.py
src/docs/parser.py
src/git/history.py
OUTPUT:
"Barkly Dev.to reads the project's documentation,
examines its repository structure, and uses Git history
to determine what changed before assembling the article."
FR-010 — Project Context
The system shall provide sufficient context for a reader unfamiliar with the project.
A generated article should answer:
What is this?
Why does it exist?
What problem does it address?
How does it work?
What changed?
Why does the change matter?
Where can I learn more?
7. Barkly Standard Integration
FR-011 — Standard Detection
The system shall detect relevant Barkly Standard documentation when available.
FR-012 — Human-Centered Validation
The system shall validate generated publications for required Barkly publication characteristics.
Examples may include:
understandable language
accessibility considerations
transparency
privacy considerations
safety considerations
autonomy
documentation
experimental status where applicable
FR-013 — Barkly Metadata
The system shall support Barkly-specific publication metadata.
Examples:
organization: Barkly Labs
project: CYN-X
standard: Barkly Standard
generated_by: Barkly Dev.to
8. Human Review
FR-014 — Human Approval
The system shall support human review before publication.
The default workflow shall be:
Generate
↓
Validate
↓
Review
↓
Approve
↓
Publish
FR-015 — No Mandatory Automatic Publication
The system shall not require immediate publication after generation.
A contributor shall be able to generate a draft without publishing it.
FR-016 — Review Changes
The system shall allow a human to modify generated content before publication.
The system shall not overwrite human edits without explicit action.
9. Dev.to Integration
FR-017 — Dev.to API
The system shall support publication through the Dev.to API.
FR-018 — Draft Publication
The system shall support creating a Dev.to article as an unpublished draft where supported.
FR-019 — Publication
The system shall support publishing an approved article to Dev.to.
Publication shall require the appropriate credentials.
Credentials shall not be stored directly in source code.
FR-020 — Idempotent Publication
The system shall prevent accidental duplicate publications.
The system shall maintain an identifier allowing it to determine whether a project/change has already been published.
Example:
repository
+
commit
+
article type
=
publication identity
10. GitHub Actions
FR-021 — CI Integration
The system shall support execution through GitHub Actions.
Example workflow:
Git Push
↓
GitHub Actions
↓
Barkly Docs discovery
↓
Change detection
↓
Article generation
↓
Barkly validation
↓
Draft
↓
Human approval
↓
Dev.to
FR-022 — Automated Generation
A GitHub workflow shall be capable of generating a publication when configured repository events occur.
Possible triggers include:
push
release
tag
manual workflow dispatch
scheduled workflow
FR-023 — Manual Execution
The system shall provide a manual workflow trigger.
This allows a contributor to intentionally request publication generation without modifying project code.
11. Transparency
FR-024 — Generated Content Disclosure
Generated articles shall be identifiable as machine-assisted or machine-generated when appropriate.
The system shall not falsely represent automated work as manually authored.
FR-025 — Source Links
Generated articles shall provide links to relevant source material when available.
Examples:
GitHub repository
Barkly Docs
project documentation
Barkly Standard
release
specific implementation
12. Failure Handling
FR-026 — Missing Documentation
If required information cannot be found, the system shall report what information is missing.
It shall not silently invent the missing information.
FR-027 — Invalid Repository
If the repository cannot be interpreted, the system shall stop generation and provide an actionable error.
FR-028 — API Failure
If Dev.to is unavailable or the API request fails, the generated article shall remain available locally or as a CI artifact where possible.
The system shall not lose the generated publication solely because publication failed.
13. Outputs
The system shall be capable of producing:
article.md
article metadata
validation report
source/evidence report
publication identifier
Dev.to URL
Future outputs may include:
website article
release notes
social post
newsletter entry
project changelog
documentation update
14. Non-Functional Requirements
NFR-001 — Reproducibility
Given the same documented repository state and configuration, the system should produce substantially reproducible output.
NFR-002 — Portability
The core system should run locally and within GitHub Actions.
NFR-003 — Security
Secrets such as Dev.to API credentials shall be supplied through secure environment variables or GitHub Actions secrets.
NFR-004 — Explainability
The system should be able to identify which documentation or repository information contributed to an article.
NFR-005 — Maintainability
The system shall remain modular so additional publication targets can be added without rewriting the documentation discovery layer.
15. Future Architecture
The eventual Barkly ecosystem could look like:
BARKLY DOCS
│
Structured knowledge
│
┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
WEBSITE DEV.TO GITHUB
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
Project pages Articles Releases
│ │ │
└─────────────┼─────────────┘
▼
COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE