Google Season of Docs 2024

Overview of Accord Project

Accord Project champions the importance of contract text alongside computer-code when automating contracts. This is often referred to as Computable Contracts or Smart Legal Contracts. The Accord Project is a non-profit, collaborative, initiative developing an ecosystem and open source tools for computational contracts.

The community includes participants from law firms, technology companies, universities, government and private individuals. Today, the community maintains a technology neutral foundation for smart legal contracts, based on the union of legal text with a machine readable data model, and machine executable logic. This definition of a smart legal contract is recognized across the industry, including by statutory and standards bodies. Accord Project is a top-level Linux Foundation project.

Accord Project participated in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in 2020 and 2021, helping students become familiar with contributing to open source software. In 2022, Accord Project hosted its own Accord Project Summer of Code (APSoC) for the same purpose. Each year, Accord Project chooses a few students to sponsor and guides them in completing projects that either expand or utilize AP technology. We’re underway with submission reviews from contributors for Google Summer of Code 2024.

Changes to Accord Project Docs

The Accord Project has pivoted its solutions to use general-purpose programming languages over its historical use of a custom Domain Specific Language (Ergo), and the Cicero Templating System. The marketing site, and documentation site still prominently feature Ergo and Cicero and are a source of confusion for new community members. You can read more about our future strategy in this White-Paper.

As a part of the overhaul, we'll be removing references to the packages, tools, and libraries that we no longer maintain, and updating the documentation to incorporate the new framework.

For prospective technical writers participating in Google Season of Docs, this presents an opportunity to contribute to the documentation overhaul. You'll have the chance to help us streamline and update our documentation to align with our revised technology stack and ensure that our users have access to accurate and up-to-date information as they navigate our platform.

Project Description

Documentation Overhaul - Updating Overview, Tutorial and References Sections

• Restructure the content of the documentation site so that is reflects the new strategy for general purpose programming languages in Smart Legal Contract Templates as defined in the recent AP whitepaper (An Introduction to Computable Contracts).

• Removing mentions of deprecated components such as Ergo, Cicero, and associated tools from the documentation, and websites. Additionally, the project involves describing new tools like template-engine, markdown-transform, and template-playground where applicable. 

• Update the Overview and Reference sections. Reference section will be auto-generated from code comments using tools like js-doc and ts-doc, with candidates required to supplement additional details if necessary. This effort aims to ensure that our documentation accurately reflects the current state of our technology stack.

• Additionally, redesign the tutorials section to create a structured learning pathway for beginners, while also collaborating with maintainers and the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to design a comprehensive learning pathway.

• Describe a reference implementation for the new Smart Legal Contracts stack using input from the community

• Develop an overall information architecture for Accord Project, including all channels and information assets: social media, video hosting, blog, technical documentation, tutorials, tool downloads and playground environments.

Scope:

• Review existing documentation to identify mentions of deprecated components (Ergo, Cicero, etc.).

• Remove deprecated mentions and update documentation to reflect the removal of these components.

• Utilize tools like js-doc and ts-doc to auto-generate mentions from code comments.

• Add mentions of new tools such as template-engine, markdown-transform, and template-playground where applicable.

• Update the overview section of the documentation to reflect the changes in the technology stack.

• Update the mentions throughout the documentation with the revised information.

• Collaborate with maintainers and the TSC to design a structured learning pathway for beginners within the tutorials section.

• Develop beginner-friendly tutorials that cover fundamental concepts and features of the Accord Project Stack, providing hands-on learning experiences.

• Implement interactive elements, such as code snippets and exercises, to enhance the learning experience for beginners.

• Collaborate with development teams to ensure accuracy and alignment of documentation with the updated technology stack.

• Solicit feedback from users and iterate on documentation improvements.

• Develop a template for Information Architecture, the template should help new documentation contributors classify new information that is to be added to the docs.

Must Have:

• Ability to interpret and supplement code comments for documentation purposes

• Attention to detail in tracking and updating mentions

• Technical writing skills, with the ability to explain complex concepts in a beginner-friendly manner

• Experience in creating tutorials and instructional content

• Familiarity with JavaScript, TypeScript and Schema languages like JSON etc.

Nice To Have:

• Familiarity with code documentation tools (e.g., js-doc, ts-doc, Docusaurus)

• Familiarity with Accord Project Stack.

• Familiarity with Model Driven Development

Measuring Success:

• A poll would be conducted by the TSC within the community which should have a positive result about the changes to the new documentation.

• We should have 0 broken links.

• References for all the old and new packages are updated and merged.

• Increase in the weekly downloads for the Accord Project Template-Engine package.

Timeline

Month	Action Items
May	- Technical writer orientation, introduction with the community, maintainers and the TSC. - Onboarding regarding Accord Project and reviewing existing state of the documentation.
June - October	- We would like to work with the Technical Guide to implement the Documentation changes. - Constant feedback, improvements and evaluation every month.
November	- Project completion, case study, and evaluation

Apply as a Technical Writer

• Applications for Technical Writer open till 20th April 2024
• We’ll announce the selected candidate on 1st May 2024
• Please fill this Application Form.

GSoD Admin/POC

Please reach out to us or route your queries to admin@accordproject.org

Program Admin: @mttrbrts

Volunteer: @sanketshevkar

Join the Accord Project Technology Working Group Discord server to get involved!

Budget

Budget item	Amount	Justification
Technical writer	$14,500.00	(May 1st to November 22nd) 29 weeks x 25 hours/week x $20
Swags for technical writer	$250	Swags cost + priniting + shipping
Total	$14,750

Additional information

• **Previous experience with technical writers or documentation: ** The Accord Project hosts its existing documentation at docs.accordproject.org and concerto.accordproject.org. This documentation is produced by maintainers and community members.

• **Previous participation in Google Season of Docs, Google Summer of Code or others: ** The Accord Project was accepted to the Google Summer of Code programme in 2020, 2021 & 2024. The Accord Project administered a self-funded internship programme for 3 students in 2022. Details of previous programmes are listed on the news section of our website, https://accordproject.org/news