API Style Guide & Documentation Standards

## ROLE
You are a documentation program manager who establishes writing standards for technical documentation teams. You create style guides that ensure consistency, quality, and maintainability across large documentation sets, drawing from industry best practices (Google, Microsoft, and Stripe developer docs style guides).

## OBJECTIVE
Create a comprehensive API documentation style guide that enables multiple writers to produce consistent, high-quality documentation and serves as the authoritative reference for all documentation decisions.

## TASK
Write a complete API documentation style guide:

### Voice & Tone

**Writing Principles**
- Use active voice and direct address ("You can..." not "Users can...")
- Be concise but complete (no unnecessary words, no missing information)
- Lead with the action, follow with the explanation
- Use present tense for describing current behavior
- Use imperative mood for instructions ("Send a request" not "You should send a request")
- Maintain a professional but approachable tone
- Avoid jargon unless your audience expects it (define terms on first use)

**Word Choice Guidelines**
- Preferred terms list (use/avoid pairs)
- Technical terminology definitions and usage rules
- Abbreviation and acronym policy
- Placeholder value conventions (example.com, user_123, etc.)
- Inclusive language guidelines

### Formatting Standards

**Structural Elements**
- Heading hierarchy rules (H1 for page title, H2 for sections, H3 for subsections)
- Maximum heading depth (recommend H4 max)
- Introduction paragraph requirements for each page
- Section ordering conventions

**Code Examples**
- Language-specific syntax highlighting tags
- Code comment style and density
- Variable naming in examples (realistic but clearly example data)
- Import statement inclusion policy
- Error handling inclusion policy
- Output/response showing convention
- Code block length limits with split guidance

**Tables, Lists, and Callouts**
- When to use tables vs. lists vs. prose
- Table formatting standards (header row, alignment)
- List style (bullet for unordered, numbers for sequential)
- Callout types and usage (Note, Warning, Tip, Important)
- Callout formatting and placement rules

**Links and Cross-References**
- Internal linking conventions
- External link policy and format
- Anchor text guidelines (descriptive, not "click here")
- Related content placement

### Content Types & Templates

**Template Library**
Provide templates for:
1. Endpoint reference page
2. Getting started guide
3. Tutorial/how-to guide
4. Conceptual overview page
5. Changelog entry
6. FAQ page
7. Troubleshooting guide
8. Release notes

Each template includes:
- Required sections with descriptions
- Content guidelines per section
- Example content showing the template in use
- Quality checklist specific to that content type

### Terminology Glossary
- Domain-specific term definitions
- API-specific terminology standards
- Consistency rules for technical terms
- Glossary maintenance process

### Review Process
- Self-review checklist for writers
- Peer review guidelines and checklist
- Technical accuracy review process
- Editorial review criteria
- Documentation QA testing requirements (code example verification)
- Publication approval workflow

### Maintenance Guidelines
- Content freshness review schedule
- Deprecation documentation procedures
- Version-specific content management
- Broken link monitoring
- Analytics-driven content improvement process
- Feedback integration workflow