How Swarmia created product-first documentation with GitBook
With a focus on high-quality design and user experience, Swarmia needed documentation that would meet the same standards as their product. As an engineering intelligence platform that serves productivity insights to CTOs and developers, documentation isn’t just a reference tool — it’s a core part of the product experience.
The team turned to GitBook to create a seamless, collaborative documentation experience that serves both their internal team and customers.
We spoke with Roman Musatkin, Head of Product and Design at Swarmia, about how GitBook transformed their approach to documentation and enabled company-wide collaboration.
The challenge: multiple tools and fragmented workflows
Before GitBook, Swarmia struggled with documentation scattered across multiple platforms. The team relied on HubSpot’s help center for some content, while manually maintaining other documentation built directly into their product.
The fragmented approach created friction for anyone trying to work on the docs. With HubSpot’s complex interface, the barrier to entry was too high for cross-functional collaboration.
“We want everyone to be able to contribute to documentation, so it’s not just the product team that owns it. We want every single engineer to be able to go and contribute and edit an article or add a new article on the topic they’re exploring. So we want to have the threshold as low as possible for contributing.”
Design quality that matches the product
As a design-focused organization, Swarmia needed documentation that would reflect their commitment to quality and feel like a natural extension of their product.
“The build quality is really the number one thing for us, because I really wanted the documentation to feel like an extension of a product and not just an extra thing. GitBook does that really well. The same quality standards that are applied to our product are definitely hit by GitBook.”
The visual consistency was crucial for maintaining brand integrity across all customer touchpoints.
“I feel it also gives us brand value, because you get the same quality experience that you would get with Swarmia. The GitBook style blends with our branding, and the customer doesn’t even need to know that it’s an extra tool.”
Building on familiar workflows with Git Sync
As a modern software organization where everyone understands Git, GitBook’s GitHub sync integration was a perfect fit for Swarmia’s engineering-focused culture.
“Pretty much everyone is familiar with GitHub and how you work with Git. So it was very easy to introduce GitBook from this perspective.”
The Git Sync integration also helped Swarmia maintain consistency across their product and documentation by using the same Markdown files in both places.
“We can integrate exactly the same content in the app. So we are just using the same Markdown files and just styling them and delivering them in the app. So it’s exactly the same content served in two places.”
Maintaining quality at scale
For Swarmia, GitBook’s combination of developer-friendly workflows and intuitive editing proved essential for maintaining documentation quality as they scaled.
“What’s really important is being able to maintain all the content at scale. For example, what if we change a feature name tomorrow? When it lives in Markdown files, and it’s just a GitHub repository, it’s very easy to do.”
While the team leverages Git workflows for bulk changes, most day-to-day editing happens through GitBook’s visual editor.
“Everyone is using the editor, it’s just a way faster experience to do things. Engineers are using that as well just because it’s faster to do things in the UI, and you can ensure that it looks good for the customer.”
Company-wide collaboration at scale
Today, GitBook has enabled documentation collaboration across Swarmia’s entire organization. The team has established workflows where feature development naturally includes documentation updates, ensuring content stays current without creating bottlenecks.
“When you’re working on a new feature, you ensure that the documentation of that feature is up to date. So it’s the engineer implementing the feature that then goes and checks the documentation. This way you just get everyone exposed to how we write about our features and they get a chance to contribute.”
Rapid migration and immediate impact
The transition to GitBook proved remarkably smooth, with Swarmia migrating all of their docs in less than a single day through coordinated team effort.
“We organized a session in the product team where we distributed pages to everyone, where everyone would take something like 15 pages. And we were able to move everything in three or four hours.”
Enhanced discoverability and SEO benefits
Beyond internal collaboration, GitBook has opened new opportunities for Swarmia to reach prospects through improved search visibility.
“We are able to use our documentation for prospects, not just for customers. Finding a certain page in Google is just way easier with GitBook. Now I can actually see traffic from outside the app, which previously was not the case.”
Looking ahead: documentation as a strategic asset
For Swarmia, GitBook has transformed documentation from a necessary overhead into a strategic asset that serves multiple purposes — from onboarding new customers to supporting prospects in their evaluation process.
“For modern software organizations, it’s good to stick together, and we found a really good partner in GitBook.”
With GitBook’s foundation in place, Swarmia continues to refine their documentation strategy, using GitBook's built-in metrics and analytics to understand how customers interact with their content and ensuring their docs evolve alongside their product.
Ready to create documentation that feels like an extension of your product? Get started with GitBook for free or reach out to our team to see how GitBook’s powerful organization tools can handle even the most complex documentation needs.
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