This style guide applies to all documentation created for Grafana products.
## Contributing
This style guide is a living document. Add to it whenever a style decision is made or question is answered.
## Published guides
For all items not covered in this guide, refer to the [Microsoft Style Guide](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/welcome/) and the [Chicago Manual of Style](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html).
## Grafana-specific style
### General
* Use active voice. Avoid passive voice.
- Passive: The heatmap visualization is displayed.
- Active: Grafana displays the heatmap visualization.
* Write in the imperative second person. Examples: You can write a query. Click the panel. Close the window.
- Files that are displayed in the help system should have names that are all lowercase, no spaces. Use hyphens instead of spaces. Example: glossary.md
- Documentation file names should match the title. **Note:** This only applies to new files at this time. Do not change the names of older files unless directed to do so.
- Internal reference file names should be all uppercase except the file extension. Example: CONTRIBUTING.md
### Headings
* Write headings in sentence case, not title case.
- This is sentence case
- This Is Title Case
* Task topic headings start with a verb.
- Write a query. Create a dashboard.
* Concept and reference topic headings should be nouns or gerunds. Examples: Contributing to docs, Visualizations, Style guide
