.. _style_guide:

*******************
Ansible style guide
*******************

Welcome to the Ansible style guide!
To create clear, concise, consistent, useful materials on docs.ansible.com, follow these guidelines:

.. contents::
   :local:

Linguistic guidelines
=====================

We want the Ansible documentation to be:

* clear
* direct
* conversational
* easy to translate

We want reading the docs to feel like having an experienced, friendly colleague
explain how Ansible works.

Stylistic cheat-sheet
---------------------

This cheat-sheet illustrates a few rules that help achieve the "Ansible tone":

+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Rule                          | Good example                 | Bad example                            |
+===============================+==============================+========================================+
| Use active voice              | You can run a task by        | A task can be run by                   |
+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Use the present tense         | This command creates a       | This command will create a             |
+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Address the reader            | As you expand your inventory | When the number of managed nodes grows |
+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Use standard English          | Return to this page          | Hop back to this page                  |
+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Use American English          | The color of the output      | The colour of the output               |
+-------------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------------------+

Header case
-----------

Headers should be written in sentence case. For example, this section's title is
``Header case``, not ``Header Case`` or ``HEADER CASE``.

reStructuredText guidelines
===========================

The Ansible documentation is written in reStructuredText and processed by Sphinx.
We follow these technical or mechanical guidelines on all rST pages:

Header notation
---------------

`Section headers in reStructuredText <http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/restructuredtext/basics.html#sections>`_
can use a variety of notations.
Sphinx will 'learn on the fly' when creating a hierarchy of headers.
To make our documents easy to read and to edit, we follow a standard set of header notations.
We use:

* ``###`` with overline, for parts::

      ###############
      Developer guide
      ###############

* ``***`` with overline, for chapters::

      *******************
      Ansible style guide
      *******************

* ``===`` for sections::

      Mechanical guidelines
      =====================

* ``---`` for subsections::

      Internal navigation
      -------------------

* ``^^^`` for sub-subsections::

      Adding anchors
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

* ``"""`` for paragraphs::

      Paragraph that needs a title
      """"""""""""""""""""""""""""


Internal navigation
-------------------

`Anchors (also called labels) and links <http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/restructuredtext/roles.html#ref-role>`_
work together to help users find related content.
Local tables of contents also help users navigate quickly to the information they need.
All internal links should use the ``:ref:`` syntax.
Every page should have at least one anchor to support internal ``:ref:`` links.
Long pages, or pages with multiple levels of headers, can also include a local TOC.

Adding anchors
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

* Include at least one anchor on every page
* Place the main anchor above the main header
* If the file has a unique title, use that for the main page anchor::

   .. _unique_page::

* You may also add anchors elsewhere on the page

Adding internal links
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

* All internal links must use ``:ref:`` syntax. These links both point to the anchor defined above::

   :ref:`unique_page`
   :ref:`this page <unique_page>`

The second example adds custom text for the link.

Adding local TOCs
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The page you're reading includes a `local TOC <http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/directives.html#table-of-contents>`_.
If you include a local TOC:

* place it below, not above, the main heading and (optionally) introductory text
* use the ``:local:`` directive so the page's main header is not included
* do not include a title

The syntax is::

   .. contents::
      :local:

More resources
==============

These pages offer more help with grammatical, stylistic, and technical rules for documentation.

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 1

  basic_rules
  voice_style
  trademarks
  grammar_punctuation
  spelling_word_choice
  resources

.. seealso::

   :ref:`community_documentation_contributions`
       How to contribute to the Ansible documentation
   :ref:`testing_documentation_locally`
       How to build the Ansible documentation
   `irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>`_
       #ansible-docs IRC chat channel