prompt

Documentation Debt Calculator

Estimate the time cost of missing, outdated, or scattered documentation and prioritize what to write first.

Updated June 2026
The prompt
Calculate documentation debt for {{team_size}}-person team:

Current state:
- {{onboarding_time}} hours per new hire spent asking questions
- {{monthly_repeats}} recurring questions per month
- {{outage_context_loss}} hours lost to missing context during outages
- {{proc_ambiguity}} processes with conflicting understanding

Target state: {{documentation_goal}} (e.g., full onboarding in 3 days)

Output:
1. Annual cost of current debt (in hours × fully-loaded cost)
2. ROI of writing each doc type (onboarding guide, API docs, SOP, runbook)
3. Prioritized backlog: highest-impact docs first
4. Effort estimate per doc
5. Realistic timeline given current capacity
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Variables

Size of team (or group using the system)
Average hours new person spends on Q&A during onboarding
Same question asked N times per month
Hours lost to missing context per incident
# of processes where people do things differently
Goal state (e.g., new hire self-sufficient in 2 days)

Details

Author

AI Khazna

License

Security

Type

prompt

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