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How to Scan Your Entire Repo to Fix Outdated Docs

DeepDocs can perform a Deep Scan of your entire repository to detect and update outdated docs at any point in time.

This is different to doc updates in a continuous documentation workflow, which gets triggered each time you commit code changes.

This is useful when:

  • You're onboarding DeepDocs for the first time
  • You want to audit stale docs in legacy code
  • You've restructured code or moved modules without updating the docs

✅ Triggering the First Deep Scan

DeepDocs triggers a Deep Scan once:

  • When you commit deepdocs.yml for the first time to the code branch of interest (e.g. main)
  • It scans your full codebase against the defined target docs and creates a branch with updates (e.g. deepdocs-update-<commit_sha>)

🔁 How to Trigger a Manual Deep Scan Anytime

To manually trigger a Deep Scan:

  1. Open the deepdocs.yml file in the root of your repository
  2. Change the value of the reinit field to any new random string (e.g. a timestamp or UUID)
  3. Commit the updated deepdocs.yml to your sync branch

Example deepdocs.yml

target:
  - url: "docs/"

reinit: "manual-trigger-2025-07-10"

ignore: []

This will:

  • Trigger a fresh Deep Scan across the entire codebase
  • Create a new deepdocs-update-<commit_sha> branch with doc updates
  • Add a detailed report as a comment on the deepdocs.yml commit

📝 Tips

  • You can trigger Deep Scan as many times as needed by changing the reinit value
  • Use this to catch drifted docs across legacy code, SDKs, or after large refactors
  • Make sure target points to valid files/folders, and that DeepDocs is installed on both repos (if split)

✅ You're Done

That's it! Using this guide, you can run a deep scan of your repo any time you want and fix your outdated docs.