Hey there, so we meet again! Welcome back to my Outreachy journey, and I can't wait to tell you all about it :) I'm thrilled to have you here to witness all the ups and downs that have come my way. So, let's dive right in! 😄
Just to jog your memory, I'm Nitya Pasrija (an IT undergrad at IGDTUW), currently interning with Palisadoes organization as part of the Outreachy May 2023 cohort.
The initial weeks were filled with wireframing and scouring through the Docusaurus site showcase for inspiration and feature updates. But then, a new assignment landed on my plate—the automation of website documentation.
Now, let me give you a quick rundown. The Talawa project consists of four repositories: Talawa-API, Talawa, Talawa-docs, and Talawa Admin. To automate documentation, the Talawa repository, built with Flutter, required Dart doc workflows to generate documentation automatically from inline comments. Additionally, I had to fix a minor bug in that workflow and ensure UI consistency with the main documentation website. Oh, and don't forget about creating the entire workflow for Talawa-API using Typedoc!
As a frontend developer, the design part comes naturally to me. However, creating workflows was a whole new ball game. Enter GitHub Workflows. I had heard a lot about them, and have even waited eagerly for all the checks to pass without any errors when contributing to an open-source project. But little did I know that generating a workflow for automating docs would be quite the challenge!
In case you're wondering, GitHub Workflows are the secret sauce behind continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. They make automation a breeze by executing specific tasks within a GitHub repository. In my project, these workflows handle the automatic generation of documentation and the seamless transfer of folders to the Talawa-docs repository, to enable a smooth rendering of the documentation.
Let me tell you, it was a bumpy ride at first. Failed attempts were a common sight, and frustration often crept in. My mentors were my saving grace here. They were patient as I was struggling with the aspects of the workflow and held countless meetings (google-meets) to address my doubts.
Initially, it was tiresome! You can see the number of times my attempts failed...
Finally, I got my breakthrough and my happiness knew no bounds when the successful checks began :)
To conquer these workflows, I dove into various online resources and even took ChatGPT's help xD But, GitHub's official documentation on workflows became my trusty companion (docs.github.com/en/actions). And of course, multiple video chats with my mentors helped me unravel the mysteries of workflows too.
In a nutshell, this journey has been a rollercoaster of emotions and learning experiences. Apart from workflows, this whole incident was a reminder that in open source, there's always room to grow and ask questions :) Cuz we all start somewhere.
As I continue my Outreachy internship, I'm excited to see where this path leads. Will meet you in the next blog :) Until then, happy coding <3
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