How often are documents kept up to date when using Dosu?

Dosu keeps content up to date through three mechanisms: data source syncing, documentation maintenance, and imported document syncing.

Data Source Syncing#

Data source syncing determines how often Dosu's knowledge base refreshes to read content from third-party platforms:

GitHub: Code, issues, pull requests, and discussions sync in real-time via webhooks. When you push code or create an issue, Dosu indexes the changes immediately.

Slack: Messages sync in real-time as they're posted.

Microsoft Teams: Channel data syncs every 6 hours.

Confluence: Content syncs every 5 minutes.

Coda: Content syncs every 5 minutes.

GitLab: Code, issues, merge requests, and discussions sync every 5 minutes.

Web: Web data sources are marked as "synced" in the UI for consistency, but no website crawling or indexing occurs. Web pages are searched in real-time for every request.

Documentation Maintenance#

For documentation you generate with Dosu, the Maintain Docs feature keeps it up to date with your codebase through continuous checks:

When documentation is checked:

When a pull request or merge request is opened or marked ready for review
When commits are pushed to open PRs or MRs (with a 10-minute debounce period to avoid excessive checks)

Dosu identifies which published documents may be affected and flags any that need updates. This catches documentation issues early in the development process, before code is merged.

When new commits arrive, Dosu waits 10 minutes after the last commit before running the check, avoiding redundant checks on rapid commits. Your review decisions (accepting or declining page updates) persist across commits, so you don't need to re-review the same suggestions with each new commit.

When documentation is updated:

Documentation is automatically updated and committed when PRs or MRs are merged, ensuring your docs stay in sync with code changes without manual effort.

Imported Document Syncing#

Beyond generating documentation, Dosu can maintain your existing documentation on third-party platforms. You can import documents from GitHub, GitLab, Notion, or Confluence, and Dosu will keep them up to date directly where they already live.

Update frequency:

Imported documents are kept up to date as code changes are shipped:

GitHub/GitLab: Dosu creates a PR or MR with proposed changes when code changes occur
Notion/Confluence: Dosu updates documents directly as soon as code changes are shipped

Auto-Accept Review setting:

By default, Dosu applies updates automatically in the background. If you prefer to manually review and accept Dosu's proposed changes, you can turn off the "Auto-Accept Review" option in your Space settings.

When Auto-Accept Review is disabled:

GitHub/GitLab: Dosu creates a PR or MR for manual review instead of applying changes automatically
Notion/Confluence: You can review proposed changes before they are applied to your documents