Documenting legacy applications
Documentation is insurance: it protects against knowledge loss, makes maintenance easier and is a prerequisite for any modernisation. We document what your application really does today – not what it was meant to do 20 years ago.
When does it make sense?
- Key people are leaving the organisation or retiring.
- Documentation is missing, outdated or scattered across many places.
- Audits, certifications or tenders require evidence.
- New team members or service providers need to become productive quickly.
What we do
- Reconstruction of architecture, modules and data flows directly from the source code
- Description of business logic and rules in plain language
- Data model, interfaces, batch jobs and configuration
- AI-assisted documentation with proven prompts – precise, consistent and reviewed by experts
- Diagrams, e.g. C4, UML or BPMN
- Capturing experience through interviews with users and developers
- Documentation that can be maintained alongside the code (“docs as code”)
What you get
- Structured documentation, e.g. following arc42
- In the format of your choice: wiki, Markdown in the repository, Word or PDF
- Glossary of business terms
- Operations and emergency manual
- Onboarding material for new colleagues
Tip: good documentation pays off even if the application is replaced later – it is the best basis for a requirements specification.