Stale docs alerts for small developer-tool teams
Stale docs alerts for small developer-tool teams is a SaaS idea for small API and developer-tool companies with public docs, priced to test at $49 a month per docs site. Docs fall behind the code without anyone noticing, and customers copy examples that no longer work. When code changes an endpoint or setting, API teams see each docs page that mentions it, with a drafted update.
. A starting point we wrote, not market research: run the 7-day test before you build.
What problem does it solve?
Docs fall behind the code without anyone noticing, and customers copy examples that no longer work. Support tickets pile up, and engineers fix pages only after someone complains.
Why now: AI coding tools help small teams ship changes faster, so docs drift faster too, and AI agents now read those docs.
What do they use today?
Teams rely on an engineer remembering which pages mention a changed setting, or on someone searching the whole docs site by hand before a release. Between releases, most pages go unchecked.
How does it work?
A team connects its code repository and docs source. Each time a developer merges a change, the product checks it for endpoints, settings and functions, then lists the docs pages that mention them as possibly out of date, each with a drafted edit. A person approves or dismisses the edit, and a weekly email shows what is open and what was fixed.
What goes in the first version?
- Connect the code repository and the docs source
- Each merged change checked for endpoints, settings and functions
- A list of docs pages that may be out of date
- A drafted edit for each page, for a person to approve
- A weekly email of open and fixed pages
Who pays, and how much?
- Who pays
- Small API and developer-tool companies with public docs
- Price to test
- $49 a month per docs site
Pricing per docs site follows what the company actually publishes. A team with one set of public docs pays for one, and a team with several sites pays for each, with no per-seat count.
How to test it in 7 days
- 1Ask five developer-tool founders when they last found a broken example in their docs.
- 2Search the public issue trackers of developer tools for bug reports caused by outdated docs.
- 3Run a rough script over one open-source project’s history and show its maintainers the pages it flags.
Where to find the first customers
- Developer-tool founder communities on LinkedIn and in developer subreddits
- Freelance technical writers who work for developer-tool companies
- Open-source maintainers who sell a hosted version
What are the risks?
- Docs platforms may add the same checks, so work with several of them.
- False alarms annoy teams, so flags must be precise and quick to dismiss.
How to build it on shipanysaas
4 of the parts it needs are already in the kit. Get the kit, open it in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, and paste the starting prompt.
- Already in the kit
- Teams and roles
- Billing
- Emails
- In-app notifications
- You build
- Repository and docs connections
- Change-to-page matching with AI drafts
- Review list and weekly email
See the starting prompt
You are in a fresh copy of the shipanysaas starter kit, a pnpm and Turborepo monorepo: the Next.js web app is in apps/web and the Supabase database, with its migrations, in apps/web/supabase. Help me build the first version of Stale docs alerts for small developer-tool teams. Read AGENTS.md first, then the AGENTS.md in every folder you work in: the kit's rules there win over your defaults. When a skill in .agents/skills (also in .claude/skills and .cursor/skills) matches a task, use it. ## The product - What it does: When code changes an endpoint or setting, API teams see each docs page that mentions it, with a drafted update. - Who pays: Small API and developer-tool companies with public docs - Their problem: Docs fall behind the code without anyone noticing, and customers copy examples that no longer work. Support tickets pile up, and engineers fix pages only after someone complains. - Price to test: $49 a month per docs site (a plan in apps/web/config/billing.config.ts) ## Build only this first version 1. Connect the code repository and the docs source 2. Each merged change checked for endpoints, settings and functions 3. A list of docs pages that may be out of date 4. A drafted edit for each page, for a person to approve 5. A weekly email of open and fixed pages ## Already in the kit: reuse it, never rebuild it - Teams and roles: team accounts with members, roles and invitations - Billing: Stripe or Lemon Squeezy subscriptions, per seat or usage-based, and one-off payments - Emails: transactional email through Resend or Nodemailer - In-app notifications: a notifications bell in the web app ## New code it needs - Repository and docs connections - Change-to-page matching with AI drafts - Review list and weekly email ## How to work 1. Plan first: list the database tables (with row-level security, so each team only sees its own rows), the pages and the server actions for the first feature. Then stop and wait for my OK. 2. Build one feature at a time with the kit's own UI and form components, with a migration for every schema change and user-facing text in the translation files. 3. After each feature, run the verification steps in AGENTS.md, fix what they find, and tell me what you built and what comes next. ## Rules - Ask me before you add a dependency, delete a file, or change sign-in, billing or the admin panel. - Leave the parts of the kit this product doesn't use as they are. Done when every first-version feature works for a signed-in team and the AGENTS.md checks pass.
Guides for the parts it uses
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