Generate API Documentation with AI — Codowave

Generate API Docs From the Code That Exists

Documentation is the work everyone agrees is important and nobody does. The endpoint ships, the docs are a TODO, and six months later the only reliable source of truth for your API is the code itself. New hires read the handlers to understand the contract. External consumers guess at the response shape. The docs that exist are subtly wrong because the code moved and the docs didn't.

Codowave reads the actual code — your routes, types, and handlers — and writes documentation that matches it. It generates reference docs and inline comments, runs your tests to make sure it didn't touch behavior, and opens a PR. Because it works from the code, the docs are accurate to what your API really does.

Why API Docs Rot

Docs decay for a structural reason: they live separately from the code they describe, so nothing forces them to stay in sync. The specific failures are familiar:

• An endpoint ships with no docs because docs aren't part of "done."
• A response field is renamed; the docs still list the old name.
• A new query parameter is added; the docs never mention it.
• An error code is returned that no doc explains.
• The one engineer who knew the API leaves, and the docs were in their head.

Writing docs from scratch is tedious; keeping them current is worse. Both are exactly the kind of sustained, verifiable work an autonomous agent handles without losing interest.

How Codowave Documents an API

Codowave reads the source as the source of truth, so what it writes reflects the real contract rather than someone's stale memory of it.

1. Point it at the API. File an issue — "document all endpoints in routes/orders" — or scope Codowave at the API package.
2. Read the code. The Planner identifies endpoints, request and response types, status codes, and error paths from the handlers themselves.
3. Write the docs. The Coder generates reference docs, JSDoc/TSDoc comments, or OpenAPI annotations in whatever format your repo already uses.
4. Verify nothing broke. The Tester runs your suite, since adding annotations or comments shouldn't change behavior — and confirms it didn't.
5. Open a PR. The docs land as a reviewable PR, so a human confirms accuracy before they're published.

Because the docs are derived from the code, they capture the parameters and error cases that hand-written docs routinely miss.

What It Documents Well

For the conceptual and rationale work at the bottom, Codowave can draft from the code, but a human should own the framing — the agent knows what the code does, not always why you chose it.

Accurate, Then Kept Accurate

The first pass documents what's there. The ongoing value is keeping it current. Because Codowave is backlog-first and GitHub-native, you can route doc-maintenance work the same way you route any issue: when an endpoint changes, an issue to update its docs flows through the same Planner-Coder-Reviewer-Tester loop, and the Reviewer checks that the docs match the current code rather than the old behavior.

Pattern memory makes the output consistent. After roughly ten merged PRs, Codowave has learned your doc style — your comment conventions, how you structure a reference page, the tone of your existing docs — so new documentation reads like the rest of yours instead of a generic template.

Safe and Bounded

Docs work is low-risk, but the same controls keep it predictable.

• Watch-only mode. Doc PRs come to you for review, which matters because accuracy is the whole point — a human confirms the generated docs are right before they merge.
• Cost ceiling per run. A hard dollar cap per agent run on your own Anthropic Claude key.
• Tests still run. Even for a docs change, the Tester runs your suite to confirm nothing in behavior shifted.

Get Started

1. Sign up at codowave.com/signup — 3 issues free, no card required.
2. Connect your repo and file an issue scoping the API you want documented.
3. Review the generated docs PR for accuracy.
4. Route follow-up issues to keep docs in sync as the API changes.

Plans start at $20/mo — see pricing. Pair this with automating test writing to document and verify endpoints together.