Tally documentation

This documentation is organised by Diátaxis. It is split by what you need at the moment you open a page, not by the component that implements the thing you are reading about. Pick the quadrant that matches your situation, and every page inside it is written for that situation alone.

Find your path

You are…	You want…	Go to
new to Tally	to learn it by doing, hand-held	Tutorials
getting a job done	the shortest correct steps for a task	How-to guides
looking something up	the exact contract of a surface	Reference
trying to understand why it is built this way	the reasoning behind the design	Explanation

The four quadrants

Tutorials hold lessons. A lesson walks you through a task you have never done, with every decision already made for you. It answers the question "teach me this".

How-to guides hold recipes. A recipe is the shortest correct path to one goal for a reader who already knows what they want. It answers the question "how do I do this".

Reference holds specifications. A specification states the exact contract of one surface, such as a command, a configuration key or an HTTP endpoint. It answers the question "what exactly is this".

Explanation holds discussions. A discussion gives the reasoning behind a design and the alternatives that were weighed against it. It answers the question "why is it like this".

Beyond the four quadrants

Contributing documents the project, not the product. It covers how Tally is built, tested and documented, so it is for people who change the repository rather than people who run the result.

The reasoning behind this split, and the test for placing a new page in it, is in How this documentation is organised.