--- title: Document Your APIs and Increase Your Developer... description: Documentation is framed as a core developer productivity tool that applies to APIs just as much as to code. The piece breaks down three levels of documentation... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/document-your-apis-and-increase-your-developer-productivity-buf-xcbteorw5 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Document Your APIs and Increase Your Developer Productivity · Buf | daily.dev og:description: Documentation is framed as a core developer productivity tool that applies to APIs just as much as to code. The piece breaks down three levels of documentation... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/document-your-apis-and-increase-your-developer-productivity-buf-xcbteorw5 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/XcbTeoRW5.png og:image:alt: Document Your APIs and Increase Your Developer Productivity · Buf og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Document Your APIs and Increase Your Developer Productivity · Buf **[Buf Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/buf)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Documentation is framed as a core developer productivity tool that applies to APIs just as much as to code. The piece breaks down three levels of documentation - type definitions, in-line comments, and package/module overviews - and applies these principles specifically to Protocol Buffers API definitions, covering messages, enums, and services. It also explains how Buf Schema Registry (BSR) publishes leading comments as documentation at the package and module level, including the use of a buf.md file for module-level docs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I add module-level documentation to a Protocol Buffers repository in Buf Schema Registry? Add a buf.md file to the module source code. This file appears at the top of the Docs tab of the repository in Buf Schema Registry and gives a clear overview of the module, separate from the type-level and package-level comments already documented in the .proto files. _Developers organizing proto repos can find more Buf Schema Registry practices curated on daily.dev._ ### How does Buf Schema Registry generate package-level documentation from proto files? It publishes the leading comments attached to one of the package declaration tags as the package-level documentation. If multiple package tags across files carry leading comments, the generated documentation uses the leading comments from the first file in the package based on alphabetical order. _Teams standardizing API documentation workflows track tooling details like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The modern Protobuf workflow · Buf](https://daily.dev/posts/the-modern-protobuf-workflow-buf-c2m7gywhe) · Buf Blog · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Better than JSON](https://daily.dev/posts/better-than-json-d2je9kyed) · Hacker News · 250 upvotes · 22 comments - [Protobuf, JSON Schema, and OpenAPI · Buf](https://daily.dev/posts/protobuf-json-schema-and-openapi-buf-00wgyenfv) · Buf Blog · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [A modern alternative to Protocol Buffer](https://daily.dev/posts/a-modern-alternative-to-protocol-buffer-k1dw3nil7) · Hacker News · 28 upvotes · 3 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#backend](https://daily.dev/tags/backend), [#grpc](https://daily.dev/tags/grpc) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/document-your-apis-and-increase-your-developer-productivity-buf-xcbteorw5) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Document Your APIs and Increase Your Developer Productivity · Buf","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/document-your-apis-and-increase-your-developer-productivity-buf-xcbteorw5","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/document-your-apis-and-increase-your-developer-productivity-buf-xcbteorw5"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T07:20:09.557Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T07:20:51.212Z","description":"Documentation is framed as a core developer productivity tool that applies to APIs just as much as to code. 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