MamboDocs
MamboDocs is the operating standard for Project Mambo repositories. It gives users, contributors, maintainers, and tools predictable project boundaries while allowing applications, libraries, commands, websites, assets, documentation, and personal configuration to keep only the structure they need.
Use the standard
For a new project, begin with the product definition and new-repository checklist. For an existing project, use the page matching the boundary being changed and record any applicable exception. The repository checker validates the objective baseline; human review validates truth, safety, and usability.
Core contract
Define motivation, users, current scope, non-goals, and maturity before architecture.
Author documentation once in the notes vault and synchronize complete repository snapshots.
Make the README, user path, developer setup, public interfaces, lifecycle, and validation route discoverable.
Keep commands and scripts copyable, deterministic where practical, and safe around user-owned state.
Treat commands, package exports, routes, configuration, files, and stored data as versioned consumer contracts.
Pin provider inputs, wrap project-specific dependency mapping in the consumer, and keep ordinary builds self-contained.
Validate each coherent phase, use Conventional Commits, and separate local changes from remote publication.
Apply requirements proportionally and record bounded exceptions instead of inventing ceremony.
Define and document a project
Product definition
Define a Project Mambo repository by its problem, users, scope, outcomes, and current maturity.
Starting a repository
Start a Project Mambo repository with a clear purpose, safe baseline, remote, documentation, and validation contract.
Repository and documentation
Organize a Project Mambo repository, README, canonical documentation, and website documentation tree.
User guide
Write task-focused user documentation from installation through daily use, recovery, updates, and removal.
Developer guide
Document fresh-clone setup, architecture, workflows, testing, generated files, and contribution delivery for developers.
Design and maintain contracts
Commands and scripts
Format documented commands consistently and build small, safe, automation-friendly repository scripts.
Interfaces and API design
Design stable command-line, terminal UI, library, service, file, and configuration boundaries.
Lifecycle and versioning
Keep bootstrap, installation, updates, versions, releases, deprecation, and retirement safe and understandable.
Dependencies
Select, pin, update, audit, and remove dependencies through explicit provider and consumer boundaries.
Validate and govern delivery
Validation and delivery
Define phased work, authoritative checks, conventional commits, review evidence, and safe push, release, or deploy paths.
Codex workflow
Apply phased delivery, canonical documentation synchronization, and repository checks automatically in Codex.
Exceptions
Apply the shared standard proportionally and record justified, bounded, reviewable deviations.
Source of truth
Canonical pages live under notes/Docs/Projects/MamboDocs/. The MamboDocs repository and this published section are synchronized outputs. Standards changes update canonical page metadata, run the sync, and validate the complete result.
Scope
MamboDocs defines the shared baseline and provides copyable templates plus a small read-only checker. It does not generate application architecture, force a common language, or claim that every existing Project Mambo repository already conforms.