Why Developers Hate Writing Docs (And How It Hurts Teams)
Meta Description: Why developers hate writing documentation and how it hurts productivity. Plus 5 practical ways to make docs less painful and keep them up-to-date.
It's 4:47 PM on Friday. Your PR is ready to merge. The code is beautiful. Tests are green. The feature works perfectly.
But there's one thing left: updating the docs.
You know what happens next. You close your laptop. "I'll do it Monday."
Spoiler: You won't.
If you ask a room full of developers who actually enjoys writing documentation, you'll hear crickets — maybe followed by a sarcastic "Does README count?"
It's not that we don't understand how important docs are. We do. We just... really don't want to write them. Between building features, fixing bugs, and keeping CI/CD from imploding, documentation always feels like that last checkbox you promise you'll "get to later."
But here's the uncomfortable truth — skipping documentation hurts everyone, including the person who skipped it. Let's unpack why devs hate writing docs, what that costs, and how we can make the whole thing suck less.
Why Developers Hate Writing Docs
1. It Feels Like Homework
Writing docs doesn't give the same dopamine hit as shipping code.
When you solve a bug or push a feature, you see results. You get that sweet green checkmark in CI. Docs? You get… silence. No confetti. No compile success. Just a blank Markdown file judging you.
It feels like explaining your homework to a future version of yourself who probably won't read it anyway.
2. There's No Instant Gratification
Code runs. Tests pass. Features deploy.
Docs? Nothing happens. There's no "Documentation Complete!" fireworks or GitHub badge that says "Wow, amazing prose."
Worse, when your documentation does get attention, it's usually because someone's mad it's outdated.
3. The Tools Are Awful
Let's be real — documentation tools haven't exactly kept pace with modern dev workflows.
You've probably encountered:
- A wiki that hasn't been touched since 2018.
- A README with six different Markdown styles and half-broken links.
- Or a "build the docs" script that only works if you have
pandoc, Python 3.6, and an ounce of luck.
Writing docs often feels like coding without syntax highlighting — possible, but unnecessarily painful.
4. Docs Rot Faster Than Milk
"We'll update it later" is the biggest lie in software engineering.
Six months after launch, your once-beautiful onboarding guide references Node 12 and a repo that's been renamed twice. At that point, developers start thinking: why bother documenting something that'll be outdated next sprint?
According to industry research, developers spend an average of 3-4 hours per week answering questions that could've been solved by up-to-date documentation. That's nearly 20% of a work week lost to information that should have been written down once.
That mindset becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — no one updates the docs because they assume they'll rot, and they rot because no one updates them.
5. Team Culture Doesn't Reward It
Here's the real killer: if your team doesn't value documentation, nobody will.
When leadership doesn't review or celebrate docs, they quietly become optional. "Move fast" culture often translates to "move fast and skip the README."
And once that norm sets in, it's really hard to undo.
How Skipping Docs Hurts Everyone (Including You)
Skipping documentation might save you an hour today — but it'll cost your team days (and your sanity) later.
1. You Become the Bottleneck
Congratulations, you built the feature!
Also, congratulations — you're now the official support line for it.
Every Slack ping that starts with "Hey, quick question about…" is time you could've saved by writing a few lines in a README.
Without docs, knowledge lives in your head. And that means everyone needs you to move anything forward.
2. Onboarding Becomes Dark Souls
New developers shouldn't need a boss fight just to get the project running.
But without setup docs, onboarding becomes a trial-by-fire. They spend hours piecing together the environment, digging through Slack threads, or praying to the gods of npm install.
Stack Overflow's Developer Survey consistently shows that over 60% of developers cite poor or missing documentation as their biggest productivity blocker when joining a new project or learning a new codebase.
Every missing line in setup.md adds another hour of friction — and frustration.
3. Forgotten Context = Future Pain
If you've ever opened your own code six months later and thought,
"Who wrote this garbage?"
Congratulations — you've met Past You, the developer who didn't document anything.
Docs are how we preserve context. Without them, future-you ends up reverse-engineering decisions you already made. That's not progress — that's time travel without the fun parts.
4. Burnout from Rework
When teams don't document design decisions, they end up re-solving the same problems over and over again.
A year later, someone builds a "new" feature that already exists — just under a different name. Another person "fixes" a bug that was intentionally written that way. Everyone loses hours chasing ghosts.
Bad docs don't just slow teams down; they silently drain morale.
5. Tech Debt Compounds Faster
Every undocumented function is technical debt. Every missing setup step is a time bomb.
When docs are missing, teams can't refactor confidently — they don't know what might break or why certain code exists. This fear of the unknown keeps codebases stagnant, makes architectural improvements risky, and forces developers to work around problems instead of fixing them.
Documentation isn't just nice-to-have. It's the difference between a codebase you can evolve and one you're afraid to touch.
Making Docs Less Painful (and Maybe Even Enjoyable)
Okay, enough venting. Let's talk solutions. Writing documentation doesn't have to feel like pulling teeth — if you approach it the right way.
1. Treat Docs Like Code
The biggest mindset shift is simple: docs are code.
They live in version control, get reviewed in pull requests, and evolve with your features.
That means:
- Keep docs in the repo, not buried in a separate wiki.
- Review them like code — small, frequent updates > massive rewrites.
- Make "updated docs" part of the definition of done.
When docs live with the code, they actually stay up-to-date. Magic.
2. Automate the Boring Stuff
Let's be honest — most of us don't hate writing docs. We hate maintaining them.
Automate what you can:
- Generate API and type docs directly from code comments.
- Use tools that integrate with your CI/CD pipeline to keep docs synced automatically.
- Auto-publish to GitHub Pages or your internal portal on every merge.
Pro tip: Tools that can extract documentation directly from your code (like type definitions, function signatures, and JSDoc comments) turn this into a 5-minute task instead of a 2-hour chore.
Automation removes friction. The fewer clicks between "I wrote this" and "it's live in the docs," the more likely you'll actually do it.
3. Write in Micro-Doses
Don't schedule "documentation day." It'll never happen.
Instead, write small updates as part of your regular dev flow:
- Add one note when you fix a tricky bug.
- Update setup steps after your environment changes.
- Drop a one-liner in the README for every new config flag.
Docs aren't a novel. They're breadcrumbs for future you and your teammates.
4. Think of Your Future Self
Write like you're explaining your code to someone with zero context — because future-you will have zero context.
A good test: if you can't spin up your own project from scratch without checking your brain's memory cache, your docs aren't good enough.
Documentation is basically time travel for developers — a message to your future self saying,
"Hey, here's how not to waste your afternoon again."
5. Make It a Team Habit
Culture eats good intentions for breakfast.
Docs stick when teams treat them as part of the process, not an afterthought:
- Add a "docs updated?" checkbox to your PR template.
- Call out great documentation in retros or sprint demos.
- Pair devs up — one codes, one documents.
When writing docs becomes normalized, it stops being a chore.
Docs Aren't a Chore — They're a Shortcut
Good documentation doesn't slow you down — it speeds you up.
Every line you write today saves someone (probably you) hours later. It reduces context-switching, onboarding pain, and those endless "quick questions."
You don't have to love writing docs. You just have to love not explaining the same thing for the tenth time.
So next time you're about to skip the README update, remember:
- Future-you will thank you.
- Your teammates will thank you.
- And your codebase will finally stop feeling like a haunted house.
Because in the end, code is for computers —
but docs are for humans. 🧠💻
Quick Dev-Friendly Documentation Checklist
Save yourself hours of frustration with these five essential checks:
✅ The README actually works (you've tested it)
→ Run through setup on a fresh machine/VM to verify
✅ Setup steps are clear and current
→ Have a new team member test them on their first day
✅ Common scripts and configs are documented
→ Every npm script has a comment explaining its purpose
✅ You note why something exists — not just what it does
→ Use inline comments for non-obvious decisions and trade-offs
✅ Docs live with the code, not in an abandoned wiki
→ Documentation PRs merge alongside code PRs
If you hit those five boxes, you're already doing better than 90% of teams.
Learn More About Better Documentation Practices
Curious about automation? Explore our guide on integrating documentation into your CI/CD pipeline to keep your docs always up-to-date, or see our comparison of the top documentation tools for JavaScript and TypeScript projects.
Ready to transform your documentation workflow? Start with our Getting Started guide to learn practical strategies you can implement today.
Have documentation horror stories or success tips of your own? Share them in the comments below or tweet us @SyntaxScribe — we'd love to hear how you're tackling the docs challenge.