Grant Application - Fixing & Updating of Zcash Documentation (https://zcash.readthedocs.io/en/master/index.html)

Community Grants Applications
1

Summary

The current Zcash documentation is outdated and, at certain points, broken.

About 60 of the 262 external URLs in the zcash-docs repo are dead; its UX/UI is outdated, and there is currently no agentic documentation to give developers the documentation they deserve for building on ZCash.

Meaningful open-source development requires documentation that works, is easy to understand, and stays up to date with today’s technology requirements. The current documentation has a significant number of pitfalls which significantly make the Zcash developer journey harder for those keen to build with or for Zcash.

As Zcash is spending majors amount of funds on onboarding and also developer onboarding, fixing these problems will be beneficial to not only the thousands of devs working with Zcash, but also improve the effiency of the ongoing sponserships and funding efforts.

Our core goal will be to correct the documentation in its current state, fix what is broken, and review what should be added.

The documentation also deserves a UI/UX update, in line with the current Zcash branding used on https://z.cash.

Last but not least, many, if not all, developers use agentic tools in their workflow; a concise agent handover document would also be beneficial (llm.txt, llm-full.txt, agent.md, etc.).

Goals and deliverables

Our plan generally would be as follows:

  1. Perform an in-depth analysis of the current documentation, both manual and agentic

  2. Review the issues of broken links and update those

  3. Review the issues of outdated information and if possible, point to the current information

  4. Sample whether the test projects mentioned in the docs are still valid and working

  5. Reduce dependencies on external links, or if relevant, create archivable backlinks so future information wouldn’t get lost

  6. Consolidate all of this information, and update/rewrite the documentation as a whole

  7. Publish Agentic Documents based on this updated documentation

  8. Update the UX/UI of the front-end to use the same branding as the main website

  9. Push the new documentation for review

  10. Merge and publish the new information

Team

Name: Michiel Degruytere
 Role: Solution architect, front-end UX/UI, technical writing
 Background: Blockchain privacy & security solutions since 2022; technical writing for various companies; multiple hackathon winner/participant. More info here: https://michiel.degruytere.com
 Responsibilities: Analysing the docs, writing and verifying new docs, researching and adjusting new information, front-end ux/ui updates.


Name: Evi Nova
   Role: Lead Engineering, technical writing & verification, agent optimisation 
   Background: Senior blockchain privacy & security developer since 2019; worked on security auditing, low-level blockchain development; multiple hackathon winner/participant.  
   Responsibilities: Analysing the docs, orchestrating and leading agentic workflows, verifying the technical writing, researching and updating new information, technical lead.

Budget & timeline

We’re dividing the work over 12 weeks, requesting a total of 40904USD (€36000), which equals about €1500 per team member per week.

Under the following milestones, with a 2-week initial payment:

- Milestone: 1
  Amount (USD): 6,817 USD
  Expected Completion Date: 4 weeks after confirmation

1. Perform an in-depth analysis of the current documentation, both manual and agentic 
2. Review the issues of broken links and update them
3. Review the issues of outdated information and, if possible, point to the current information

Deliverables: 
- Analysis report of what's broken
- Updated and reviewed links inside the current documentation
- Updated pointers to current information, or redaction of outdated information

Acceptance Criteria: Verification of updated information and acknoledgement of analysis report

- Milestone: 2
  Amount (USD): 13,634
  Expected Completion Date: 8 Weeks after confirmation

4. Sample whether the test projects mentioned in the docs are still valid and working
5. Reduce dependencies on external links, or if relevant, create archivable backlinks so future information wouldn't get lost
6. Consolidate all of this information, and update/rewrite the documentation as a whole

Deliverables:
- Rewritten documentation
- Archived backlinks (arch. pages)
- Report on status of existing test-projects, and why or why not we kept them included (or if relevant replaced with what)

Acceptance Criteria: Verification of the draft of the rewritten and updated documentation


- Milestone: 3
  Amount (USD): 13,636
  Expected Completion Date: 12 weeks after confirmation

7. Publish Agentic Documents based on this updated documentation
8. Update the UX/UI of the front-end to use the same branding as the main website
9. Push the new documentation for review
10. Merge or publish the new information

Deliverables:
- Published documentation site
- Updated UX/UI
- Agentic documents included in repos/site pointers

Acceptance Criteria: The documentation is online and usable for everyone involved!

Our full grant proposal can be found here

Request for input

We would be very keen to receive information from the community, in addition to our own research, on what is missing in the docs, videos that could be used, alongside other information you believe should be part of this.

End note

We’re excited to contribute a meaningful update to the Zcash developer experience and improve the developer experience for current and upcoming developers.

-Mf & TranquilFlow

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