> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mcp-b-sync-npm-packages-docs-bf03420.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Theory

# Understanding Diátaxis¶

> The Grand Unified Theory of Documentation
>
> —David Laing

***

The pages in this section are intended to provide some theoretical grounding for the practices Diátaxis prescribes, and to explore some of the questions it raises.

Within the discipline of documentation, discourse tends towards the practical and concrete. The approach is generally heuristic: guidelines, rules of thumb, specific imperatives, principles that we know work.

As practitioners, we have much to say about what to do, and how to do it and how it works, and relatively little to say about *why* it works. Our sense of the right way to do things is largely based on a combination of intuition and experience. The theoretical aspect of the discipline receives far less attention.

Diátaxis aims to place documentation practice on a more rigorous theoretical footing.

***

## In this section¶

These pages dig deeper into the thinking that underpins Diátaxis.

* [Foundations](../foundations/) - *why* Diátaxis works

* [The map](../map/) - documentation in two dimensions

* [Towards a theory of quality in documentation](../quality/)

Common problems explored:

* [The difference between a tutorial and how-to guide](../tutorials-how-to/)

* [The difference between reference and explanation](../reference-explanation/)

* [Diátaxis in complex hierarchies](../complex-hierarchies/)