Weāve all done it. Youāre deep in the flow, building out a plugin feature, squashing bugs, hitting milestonesāand you think, āIāll document this later.ā
Then later becomes never.
I used to think documentation was a ānice-to-have.ā Something you do when the real work is done. But over the yearsāespecially maintaining my own WordPress plugins and client custom solutionsāIāve seen how the lack of documentation creates invisible (but very real) costs.
Cost #1: Slower Development (Yes, Even for You)
The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that weāll remember how something works ābecause we wrote it.ā Six months later, youāre staring at your own code like itās a riddle written by someone else. Without inline comments or clear README notes, every revisit becomes archaeology.
Worse, even current development slows down when you forget why a helper function behaves a certain way, or what parameters that hook expects.
Documentation isnāt for āsomeone else.ā Itās for future you.
Cost #2: Onboarding Hell
Whether youāre growing a team or just collaborating with another dev for a sprint, a lack of documentation turns simple onboarding into a game of 20 Questions. What does this function do? Is this filter still used? Why is this action hook conditional?
Every minute your teammate spends asking basic questions (or worseādebugging things they donāt understand) is a minute lost to productivity. Multiply that over weeks or months and the time cost is huge.
Iāve had clients switch agencies purely because āthe last dev left and no one knows how their plugin works.ā Thatās not a tech debt issueāthatās a business loss.
Cost #3: Increased Bugs and Regressions
When you donāt document intent, you leave interpretation up to the next developerās guesswork. And guesses lead to bugs.
I once refactored an old plugin and removed what I thought was redundant logic. Turns out it was a workaround for a very specific WishList Member bug that I myself fixed from 5 years ago. That workaround wasnāt documented anywhereāonly realized the issue after customers started reporting it in support.
One comment or note wouldāve saved hours of debugging.
Cost #4: Lower Plugin Adoption and Community Contribution
This oneās especially true for public plugins. If people canāt figure out how to use your plugin or contribute to it because thereās no clear documentation, theyāll move on to one that is documentedāeven if itās less powerful.
Iāve seen talented devs build incredible tools, only to wonder why no one uses them. The code may be clean, but if the onboarding experience is confusing, your plugin will sit idle.
Documentation isnāt marketing, but it is user experience.
Cost #5: Burnout
This oneās more subtle.
When youāre the only person who understands the plugin codebase, everything lands on your plate. Every question, every issue, every tweak. You canāt delegate, you canāt scale, and eventually⦠you get tired.
Iāve burned out maintaining side projects because no one else could help, and the idea of āexplaining everythingā felt more exhausting than just doing the work myself. Thatās a trap.
Good documentation is how you offload that burden. Itās how you give yourself permission to rest and step away when needed.
So Why Donāt We Document?
Honestly? Itās not sexy. You donāt get dopamine hits from writing function descriptions. Thereās no client applause for a well-written README.
But over time, Iāve found a quiet pride in it. When a junior dev says, āI figured it out from your comments,ā or when I revisit old code and donāt feel lostāit feels damn good.
How I Approach Documentation Now
Nothing fancy. Just consistent:
- Inline comments for logic thatās not immediately obvious
- DocBlocks for all public functions and hooks
- README.md files that explain the pluginās purpose, how to install, how to use, and how to contribute
When Iām pressed for time, I at least leave TODO comments or open a Notion page to circle back.
The key is to treat documentation like part of the codeānot an afterthought. Just like you wouldnāt commit broken syntax, donāt leave logic undocumented.
Final Thought
Code is temporary. Even plugins youāve maintained for years will eventually evolve, be handed off, or sunset. But documentation is what gives that code clarity, life, and continuity.
If youāre not documenting your plugin code, youāre silently agreeing to future confusion, wasted time, and limited collaboration.
Itās not about perfection. Itās about leaving breadcrumbsāso someone else (or future you) doesnāt get lost.
Write the damn docs.