Topics group related Documents inside a Library so a growing knowledge base stays navigable. This page explains what a Topic is, why Topics matter as documentation grows, and how Documents get organized into them.
What a Topic is#
A Topic is a durable theme or concept in your organization. Topics usually map to product features or engineering services, so a Library might include Topics such as Authentication, Billing, or Search Indexing.
Each Topic has a name and a short description. A Document can belong to more than one Topic, so a page about a feature that touches both billing and notifications can sit under each. Documents that are not assigned to any Topic stay at the root of the Library.
Topics live inside a Library, alongside its Sources, Documents, and Templates. They are how a Library reads as a structured knowledge base rather than a flat list of pages.
Why it matters#
As an engineering organization adds repositories, teams, and Documents, a flat list stops being useful. Someone onboarding to a service should be able to find the pages that describe it without already knowing those pages exist.
Topics give a Library structure that holds up at scale:
- A shared source of truth across many repositories and teams remains browsable.
- New engineers navigate by area (a feature or a service) rather than guessing exact filenames.
- Knowledge that would otherwise scatter across Documents gets a stable home, which matters when the people who wrote it move on.
How Documents get organized#
Dosu does most of the grouping for you, and your team stays in control of the result.
Automatic assignment. As Dosu indexes a Source and generates or updates Documents, it classifies each Document against the Library's existing Topics and assigns the ones that fit. New knowledge lands under the right Topic without anyone tagging it by hand.
Topic suggestions. Dosu can also read about activities such as merged pull requests and propose new Topics to add, so the set of Topics grows with the work instead of going stale.
Manual control. On any Document you can add or remove Topics, create a new Topic inline (giving it a name and description), or clear a Document's Topics entirely. Because Dosu suggests and applies Topics rather than locking them, you can adjust the organization at any time, and edits hold even as Documents change.
Automatic assignment and Topic suggestions are configured per Library in its settings, which you open from Libraries. See Libraries for how each Library is configured independently. A few practical notes:
- A Topic name cannot contain a forward slash (
/). - A Document can carry several Topics at once.
Browsing by Topic#
Topics shape how a Library is read and searched.
- Each Document shows its Topics as badges. Selecting one opens that Topic's page, which lists every Document under it and can be searched.
- The Documents view includes a Topics tab for moving between Documents, Topics, and Templates in one place. Open it in Documents.
- Topics also appear in the Library side navigation, so you can expand an area and read the Documents grouped under it.
This gives readers, and anyone you share a public Library with, a guided path through the knowledge base by area rather than a single long list. Topics also narrow what Dosu and coding agents retrieve, so an answer can be scoped to a single area rather than the whole Library.
