Swimm

Overview

Swimm is a code documentation platform that creates docs tightly coupled to specific code snippets, functions, and files. When code changes, Swimm detects outdated documentation and flags it for review. Teams author docs in a rich editor inside their IDE or browser, and Swimm's AI can generate initial documentation drafts from code context.

Use Cases

• •Writing onboarding documentation that walks new engineers through the codebase
• •Documenting complex business logic inline with the code it describes
• •Keeping architecture decision records linked to the code they affect
• •Generating documentation drafts from code using AI to reduce writing effort
• •Detecting and surfacing stale documentation when referenced code changes
• •Creating runbooks and incident response guides linked to relevant service code

Features

• •Code-coupled documentation
• •AI documentation generation
• •Outdated doc detection
• •VS Code and JetBrains IDE plugins
• •Rich Markdown editor
• •Codebase search and linking
• •GitHub and GitLab integration
• •Documentation health dashboard
• •Doc sharing and collaboration

Integrations

Getting Started

1. 1Sign up at swimm.io and connect your GitHub or GitLab repository
2. 2Install the Swimm VS Code or JetBrains extension for in-IDE authoring
3. 3Create your first document and link it to a specific function or file in your codebase
4. 4Invite teammates to collaborate on documentation
5. 5Set up CI checks to fail builds when referenced code changes and docs become outdated

Practical Notes

• •Free tier is limited to small teams; larger organizations require a paid plan
• •AI generation features require a paid plan
• •Documentation is stored in your repository as JSON files, preserving portability
• •The automatic staleness detection works best with granular code links — broadly linked docs may generate false positives

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