Bootstrapping a new repository

Documentledger computes staleness from explicit doc-to-source links. A freshly initialized repository has no links yet, so the first scan reports no stale docs even though no documentation exists. This page describes the recommended setup sequence for first-time documentation work.

Why the first scan is a baseline

The first docledger scan hashes every configured source and documentation file and stores them as the baseline. Because there is no previous scan to compare against, it reports no changed, deleted, stale, or unlinked sources. Staleness and unlinked-source reporting only begin from the second scan onward.

Setup sequence

Initialize the workspace and record a baseline scan:
```
docledger init
docledger --json scan
```
Render a bootstrap context that includes the unlinked source inventory and current doc inventory:
```
docledger docs build-context --bootstrap
```
The bootstrap context file lists every source file that has no doc record link. These are the sources that need documentation or explicit omission.
Create documentation files for those sources under a configured documentation root (for example docs/).

Generate deterministic proposal files and review them before applying:

docledger links propose --all-docs
docledger --json links import-map --directory <reviewed-proposals> --check-and-apply

Run a link audit and coverage review:

docledger --json links audit
docledger --json coverage

Validate the documentation with the configured validation commands, then mark the new docs fresh:
```
docledger mark-fresh --all --reason "Initial docs after bootstrap link application."
```

From this point on, normal incremental maintenance applies: subsequent scans mark a doc stale only when one of its linked sources changes.