Going Beyond Expertise (opens in new tab)

Technical Writers (TWs) can contribute far beyond writing documentation: they can lead product teams and build systems that turn knowledge into an organizational asset. Toss’s Knowledge System Team created “todoc,” an internal platform that makes documentation easier to write, centralizes scattered knowledge, and enables AI access. Its broader goal is to make documentation emerge naturally from daily work and remain accurate without constant manual maintenance.

TWs as Product Owners and Makers

• The author leads a product team of developers, designers, and TWs.
• Their responsibilities include:
  • Setting product direction, roadmap, and priorities
  • Interviewing users and bringing insights to the team
  • Planning features
  • Building features directly with AI tools
• TW expertise is especially valuable because TWs have deeply considered:
  • Why documents are difficult to read
  • What makes documentation effective
  • How information should be structured for AI consumption

Why Toss Built Todoc

Todoc was launched to address weaknesses in Toss’s existing documentation environment.

• Static-site-generated documentation required users to:
  • Clone a repository
  • Write Markdown
  • Submit pull requests
  • Wait for review
• This workflow was familiar to developers but created major barriers for designers, PMs, and other non-developers.
• Existing documentation tools accumulated outdated policies, unfinished notes, and unexplained content, creating “documentation debt.”
• Knowledge was fragmented across:
  • Static sites
  • Documentation tools
  • Code
  • Collaboration messengers
  • Individual employees’ knowledge

After its beta launch, Todoc grew to more than 500 documents and 40,000 valid pages, with over 1,000 monthly users.

Todoc’s Four Core Values

Easy Documentation for Everyone

• Anyone can create or edit documents immediately.
• Content can be connected from GitHub, documentation tools, internal messengers, and other sources.
• The platform removes the technical and procedural barriers to documentation.

AI-Ready Knowledge

• Well-organized documentation can be used by team bots and other AI tools.
• Todoc supports API, CLI, and MCP access.
• Teams use it for request bots, product specifications, and other workflows.

A Single Source of Truth

• Todoc consolidates scattered sources into complete, centralized documents.
• Users can determine which information is current without searching across multiple systems.
• The platform serves as the organization’s SSoT (Single Source of Truth).

Scalable Infrastructure

• Teams no longer need to select, build, or maintain their own documentation infrastructure.
• Each team can have its own space on a shared platform.
• The model is being expanded to Toss affiliates.

Automating Documentation Quality and Maintenance

Lowering the barrier to writing creates a new challenge: maintaining quality.

• TW judgment is being converted into:
  • AI proofreading
  • Automated document reviews
  • Bots that generate initial drafts
• Todoc is also designed to create documentation automatically from:
  • Decisions and discussions in internal messengers
  • Code changes
  • Ongoing project conversations
• The system aims to update documents without relying on someone remembering to maintain them.
• It evaluates whether knowledge is still valid by checking:
  • Whether policies match implemented code
  • Whether information is actively used
  • How recently it was updated

The Evolution of TW Expertise

The role is shifting from writing excellent documents manually to designing systems that consistently produce and maintain excellent documentation.

• Experience understanding why documents are hard to read becomes standards for human- and AI-readable content.
• Judgments about what makes a good document become criteria for AI review and automated editing.
• Expertise in identifying outdated information becomes a system for validating knowledge.
• TWs increasingly focus on:
  • Creating places where knowledge can gather
  • Defining quality standards
  • Encoding human judgment into systems
  • Generating documentation through normal work
  • Keeping knowledge continuously updated

The practical vision is an organization where outdated documents trigger their own notifications, project work leaves behind organized records, and recurring explanations are preserved for future employees. Toss’s Technical Writing Chapter is therefore working to systematize TW expertise and establish documentation governance so teams can document effectively without constant manual intervention.