Before: A tutorial includes a plausible CLI flag that does not exist.
Product facts come from sources
Commands, fields and defaults must come from declared product material; unknown behavior is marked to confirm.
HINT for Technical Writers
Your assistant writes quickly. HINT keeps the docs factual and complete.
HINT keeps plain-text rules for document types, terminology, sections and samples beside the docs. Your assistant reads the rules for this page before writing, including where product facts must come from.
Where it helps
Three situations your team will recognize
Before: A reference page ships without a required section.
Document type determines structure
The page inherits the section checklist for its type, and the emit pack can create the skeleton before anyone writes prose.
Before: The same feature gets three names across a doc set.
Approved terms stay consistent
Preferred terminology and banned variants travel with every page in the relevant documentation area.
See it
A real getting-started page from the demo
The Pied Piper docs demo grounds its tutorial page in an approved product source.
demo-pied-piper-docs/docs/tutorials/getting-started.md.hint ↗
# read Approved source
../../sources/approved.md
# page tutorials-1 {#technical_writer_demo}
Approved page grounded in SRC-1.
# never Invented detailsWhat your assistant does next
It builds the required tutorial sections, uses the approved terminology, and marks any missing product fact instead of creating a flag or default.
What your AI assistant receives
<page name="tutorials-1">
Approved page grounded in SRC-1.
</page>
<never name="Invented details">…</never>Your boundaries stay visible
What it will never do
- Invent a CLI flag, API field, default or product behavior.
- Omit a required section for the declared document type.
- Publish a code sample that has not met the declared runnable-sample policy.
FAQ
Questions technical writers ask
Does it replace Vale?
No. Vale checks prose rules mechanically; HINT supplies page-specific structure, facts and intent to the assistant before prose exists.
Can it create page skeletons?
Yes. Where the Markdown emit pack applies, it can write required headings and leave constrained holes for authored content.
Can different doc types have different rules?
Yes. Tutorial, how-to, reference and explanation folders can inherit distinct structure and sample policies.
For your technical colleague
The vocabulary
A hintbook is a vocabulary for your profession—installed, not written by you.
docset- Defines the documentation collection and its audience.
doctype- Declares the page type and the sections it requires.
page- Names a page and the purpose its H1 must express.
section- Requires a particular section in the document.
procedure- Structures an ordered task for a reader.
snippet- Sets the language and verification rule for a code sample.
banned- Lists wording that must not appear.
locale- Sets language and regional conventions for a page.
Manual setup
Bootstrap is read-only: it prints instructions for the assistant. The assistant performs the installation.
npm install -g @openhint/cli
hint config
hint add @openhint/hintbook-technical-writer
hint apply
hint verify docs/tutorials/getting-started.md
hint emit docs/tutorials/getting-started.md