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2026-06-10·Ada Osei·4 min
Write the README first
If you cannot explain the tool before building it, you are about to build the wrong tool. A practice we stole from technical writers.
Before any code exists, we write the README as if the project were finished: what it does, how you install it, the three commands you will actually use. It takes an hour and it kills bad ideas while they are still cheap.
The README-first draft exposes the seams. If the usage section needs four paragraphs of caveats, the interface is wrong. If the install steps require a diagram, the packaging is wrong.
Documentation is not what you write after the work. Often, it is the work.