Adding guides

There are many ways you can contribute to ink, and one of them is by helping us add more articles to our documentation! This can take the form of design guidelines, patterns, component-specific usage instructions, or accessibility guides.

Important: All guides and patterns are now exclusively created, edited, and published through Contentful. This allows for easier collaboration, better content management, and faster updates to the documentation. Direct code contributions to guides are no longer accepted.

Guides and patterns are documents that cover topics related to ink or design at Carta. They can range from ink and Carta tools instructions, copywriting guidelines, design patterns for using sets of components together, to component specific usage instructions, and accessibility guidelines.

To contribute guides or patterns to the ink documentation, you need to get access to the In-App Marketing space in Contentful.

Step 1: Consult with @ink-design team

Before adding or editing content in Contentful, reach out to the @ink-design team in the #ink Slack channel to align on guidelines and content structure. This ensures that your contribution fits within the existing documentation standards and strategic direction.

Step 2: Request access through Okta

Request access through the Okta app to the "In-App Marketing" space in Contentful. Contact your manager or the ink team in the #ink Slack channel if you need help with the request process.

Step 3: Access In-App Marketing space

Once you have access, you'll be able to access the In-App Marketing space in Contentful where all ink documentation content is managed.

Step 4: Create or edit content

Within Contentful, you can create new guides and patterns or edit existing ones following the guidelines discussed with the ink-design team.

Important: Do not publish content in Contentful before having it reviewed by the ink team. Keep your changes as drafts until they have been reviewed and approved.

Need help?

If you have questions about contributing guides or need help with Contentful, reach out to the ink team on the #ink Slack channel. You can also reference @ink-team in any channel if you have questions.

Component-specific usage and accessibility guides are managed in Contentful alongside guides and patterns. This includes all component documentation displayed in the accessibility, usage and testing tabs on component pages. Props, metadata and examples are still managed in the ink repository through code.

To contribute component usage or accessibility documentation, follow the same process outlined above for guides and patterns: consult with the @ink-design team first, request access through Okta, and create or edit content in the In-App Marketing space in Contentful.

Component metadata, props, and examples

While usage and accessibility guides are managed in Contentful, component metadata, props definitions, and code examples still live in the ink repository. These are automatically generated from the component source code and displayed on component pages.

If you need to update component props or add code examples, you'll need to make changes directly in the ink codebase by following the adding code contribution guidelines.