Adding or changing a document

You do not need to know git to help here. Everything below can be done in the browser on github.com.

Fixing something small

1. Open the file on github.com.
2. Click the pencil icon.
3. Make the change.
4. Click Commit changes, write one line saying what you changed, and commit straight to main.

That is the whole process. There is no review step for a correction, on purpose: needing approval for a typo fix is how handbooks stop being true.

Adding a new document

First work out where it goes. The table in CLAUDE.md answers this, and the short version is:

• a repeatable process involving people → operations/sops/
• what to do when something breaks → operations/runbooks/
• "we chose X over Y" → company/decisions/
• a task somebody needs to do → an issue, not a document
• a half-formed idea → a discussion, not a document

Then copy the matching file out of templates/ and fill it in. Do not invent a new shape.

Finally, add your document to the README.md index of the directory you put it in, in the same commit.

The header every document carries

Directly under the title:

**Owner:** <person> | **Last updated:** <YYYY-MM-DD> | **Review:** <cadence> | **Classification:** <internal | confidential>

Owner is the person to ask, not necessarily the person who wrote it. Review is how often it should be re-read: quarterly, annually, or on change. A scheduled job opens an issue when a document is overdue, so this field is what keeps the handbook honest. Classification is internal unless the document covers commercial terms, legal matters, or pay, in which case it is confidential.

Writing rules

• One sentence per line. It looks odd in the editor and it is the reason changes are reviewable: without it, editing one word rewrites the whole paragraph in the diff.
• Write for somebody who joined last week. Spell out the acronym the first time.
• Filenames are lowercase-with-hyphens, ending .md.

Three things that must never appear here

1. A student's or customer's name, or any personal data. Refer to the role instead. Those records belong in the Hub CRM.
2. Invoices, VAT, or anything from the books. Those live in Jortt.
3. Technical instructions. Link to erudeon/passtheyear/docs/ instead of copying from it, so there is only ever one correct version.