"why not just put markdown files in each folder?" I had those files. I also had the answer.
I had lots of `.md` files, custom skills for consistency checks, a test-audit skill for coverage gaps, a code-truth skill that worked backwards from code to documentation. All untethered from the actual code. Nothing connected a design decision in `auth-flow.md` to the function implementing it. Nothing told me when a renamed method made the docs fiction.
So I became the binding. Personally running consistency checks. Running reconciliation. Constantly worrying about drift. It didn't scale — it scaled me.
lat.md replaced that work with three things: docs link into source code and source code comments link back to docs — the connection is explicit, not hopeful. `lat check` enforces referential integrity automatically — the tool worries about consistency so I don't have to. And the knowledge compounds — every session the agent consults the graph and can update it. I've taken to ending conversations with "review this and update [x]" where "x" is some document that I'm working on in the thread. lat.md gets updated for free.
I haven't run rigorous tests. It isn't perfect. There's no planning engine but I get by fine with various *plan.md file. But I'm rolling it out across all my repos because it replaced manual work I was already doing, more reliably than I was doing it.
Not "why do I need a tool for documentation?" but "why was I personally doing the job of a linter?"
"why not just put markdown files in each folder?" I had those files. I also had the answer.
I had lots of `.md` files, custom skills for consistency checks, a test-audit skill for coverage gaps, a code-truth skill that worked backwards from code to documentation. All untethered from the actual code. Nothing connected a design decision in `auth-flow.md` to the function implementing it. Nothing told me when a renamed method made the docs fiction.
So I became the binding. Personally running consistency checks. Running reconciliation. Constantly worrying about drift. It didn't scale — it scaled me.
lat.md replaced that work with three things: docs link into source code and source code comments link back to docs — the connection is explicit, not hopeful. `lat check` enforces referential integrity automatically — the tool worries about consistency so I don't have to. And the knowledge compounds — every session the agent consults the graph and can update it. I've taken to ending conversations with "review this and update [x]" where "x" is some document that I'm working on in the thread. lat.md gets updated for free.
I haven't run rigorous tests. It isn't perfect. There's no planning engine but I get by fine with various *plan.md file. But I'm rolling it out across all my repos because it replaced manual work I was already doing, more reliably than I was doing it.
Not "why do I need a tool for documentation?" but "why was I personally doing the job of a linter?"