Review a Change and Record a Documentation Decision

When a product change doesn't need a documentation update, you can record that decision directly in the Changes workspace. This marks the change as "not for the docs," moves it out of your review queue, and keeps a record of why it was skipped.

You need permission to apply changes in your organization. Without it, the action bar won't appear. If no codebase is connected, the workspace shows a "Connect codebase" prompt instead.

Open the change

1. Go to the Changes workspace
   Click "Changes" in the main navigation. The workspace opens to the "What's new" view. To focus on changes waiting for a decision, click "Needs review" in the view list on the left.

2. Select a change
   Click the change you want to review. Its detail appears beside the list, showing the change summary and Help Center name above the "Documentation" section.

3. Check the Help Center tabs
   If the change affects more than one Help Center, tabs appear above "Documentation." Select the Help Center you're looking at before recording a decision.

Review the suggested action

4. Read the action bar
   The action bar sits at the bottom of the detail pane. The prominent button on the right is the workspace's suggested next action for this change. Its label depends on the change's state: "Create proposals" when documentation hasn't been checked, or "Skip" when the planner expects no docs update is needed. If the change is still being checked, the bar shows a progress message and its actions are unavailable.

5. Check the planner's recommendation
   When "Skip" is the suggested action, the left side of the bar shows the planner's recommendation. The suggested reason is pre-selected in the "Skip" menu.

Record a Skip decision

6. Open the Skip menu
   Click "Skip" in the action bar. If "Skip" is the suggestion, it's the prominent button on the right. Otherwise it appears among the quieter options. A menu opens above the bar under the heading "No docs for this, because it is…"

7. Choose a reason
   Pick the reason that best describes why this change doesn't need documentation. The available reasons are:

   • "Bug fix": Restores what the docs describe.
   • "Nothing a reader sees": Readers won't notice anything.
   • "Already covered": The Help Center explains it already.
   • "Too small": Not worth an article change.
   • "Another product": Belongs to another product or website.
   • "Not a product change": A refactor, CI, or a dependency.

   You don't need to fill in any fields or provide a written justification. If the change has open proposals, skipping discards them.

8. Set the Help Center scope
   If the change affects more than one Help Center, the menu includes a scope control. For reasons that necessarily apply everywhere ("Bug fix," "Nothing a reader sees," "Not a product change"), the menu states "In all [number] Help Centers" with no option to change it. For the other reasons ("Already covered," "Too small," "Another product"), a checkbox labeled "For all [number] help centers" lets you apply the decision across all Help Centers or only the current one. Select or clear the checkbox before choosing the reason.

   When only one Help Center is involved, no scope choice appears.

Use the Enter shortcut

9. Press Enter for the suggested action
   If "Skip" is the suggested action, pressing Enter opens the reason menu. Once focus is on the suggested reason, pressing Enter again selects it. Enter won't activate while you're typing, while a text field or other control has focus, while a menu or dialog is open, or while a shortcut modifier key is held. Buttons are also unavailable while an action is running.

View and undo a decision

10. Check the recorded decision
    After you choose a reason, the decision saves, the change leaves the review queue, and the next unskipped change opens automatically. The left side of the action bar shows the recorded reason. The decision stays visible as long as it stands.

11. Inspect the decision details
    Hover over the decision shown in the action bar. A detail popup reveals who made the decision, the date, and the planner's original recommendation.

12. Undo the decision
    In the detail popup, click "Undo." This reopens the docs question on the same change, putting it back in your queue. Undo does not restore proposals that were discarded when the change was skipped. Those proposals stay discarded.

If saving a decision fails, the workspace shows an error toast titled "Updating the change failed" with the available error message. For a broader overview of the workspace and its views, see What is the Changes workspace?.