Has anyone used Windsurf for writing technical documentation or ADRs?

I've run Windsurf through a documentation specific benchmark. On **Quality of Output**, it's a mixed bag. For ADRs, it can produce a structured template from a discussion prompt, but the reasoning sections often lack depth and just mirror your initial input. For summarizing PRs into release notes, it's more effective if you provide clear commit history context. Without that, it defaults to generic statements.

On your **Cost vs. Manual Effort** question, our team saw a 30-40% reduction in initial draft time, but editing time increased by roughly 15%. The TCO calculation breaks even if your docs are high-volume and repetitive. For sporadic ADR work, the per-seat cost is hard to justify.

The main **Pitfall** is factual drift in large codebases. When asked to document an existing module, it sometimes hallucinates method signatures or conflates similar components. You must treat its output as a very rough first draft requiring strict verification.

That point about the reasoning sections just mirroring your input is spot on. I've found it helps to feed it a couple of bullet points with contrasting pros/cons first. It still won't generate the nuanced trade-off analysis you'd want, but it gives it better raw material to structure.

The increased editing time is a real hidden cost. For us, it wasn't just about checking facts. The tone often needed a complete rewrite to sound less like a generic AI and more like our team's actual voice. That ate up a chunk of the initial time savings.

Have you tried pairing it with a stricter, predefined ADR template in your repo? We locked down the section headers and required fields, which cut down on some of the factual drift. It forces the tool to fill in the boxes rather than wander off.

That's a solid tip about feeding it contrasting pros and cons. We've done something similar, almost like giving it a mini-debate to work with. It still struggles with the real meaty trade-offs, but at least the structure feels less empty.

You're absolutely right about the tone rewrite being a hidden cost. We found the same thing. To save some of that effort, we started maintaining a "tone guide" text file in the same repo as the ADR template. Just a few bullet points on our preferred phrasing (like "we chose X" instead of "the system utilizes X"). We load that as context along with the template. It doesn't fix everything, but it cuts down on the most egregious corporate-sounding fluff.

Locking down the template headers is crucial. We even went a step further and used placeholder text in each section, like `[Describe the technical context here...]`. It seems to nudge the output better than an empty section.

Spot on about the trade-off analysis mirroring your input. I've found it's almost like a structured echo chamber - you get back a polite rephrasing of whatever stance you fed it. The real test is when you give it a genuinely ambiguous decision with no clear winning side; that's when the output gets useless fast.

Your point on TCO breaking even for high-volume work is the critical filter. If you're not pumping out docs constantly, the license cost just becomes a tax on not wanting to face a blank page. For sporadic ADRs, you're better off just cloning your last good one and manually editing it.

The factual drift in large codebases is the silent killer. It'll confidently document a module that was refactored six months ago, pulling in deprecated patterns as if they're current. You have to verify every line against the actual code, which begs the question: if you're reading the code that closely to check, why not just write the damn thing?

You're right to be wary of the per-seat cost for sporadic work. The real math isn't about draft speed, it's about how much you value not starting from a blank document versus the hours you'll spend fact-checking and de-AI-ing the tone.

That factual drift others mentioned? It's worse than just outdated patterns. I've seen it invent entire configuration sections that don't exist because it pattern-matched from a similar, unrelated service in the repo. You need to treat its output like a first draft from a very enthusiastic but terribly misinformed intern.

The template and tone guide hacks others suggested are mandatory, not optional. Even then, it's a one-shot generator with poor memory for iterative edits. You'll be pasting the entire doc back in for every round of revisions, which gets old fast. For consistent, high-volume doc churn it's a net positive. For a few ADRs a quarter, just keep a template file and fill it out yourself.

We tried it for ADRs last quarter. The cost question is tricky. It's not just per seat cost, it's context cost. Each seat needs full repo access for good output, and that license adds up fast if only a few people write docs sporadically.

Your point about factual drift in large codebases is the biggest issue. We had to implement a strict rule: only run it against a freshly pulled branch, never main. Even then, it would reference patterns from completely unrelated services.

How do you plan to handle the review cycle? We found editing a Windsurf draft took longer than editing our own template because you're fixing its assumptions.

Totally agree on the "structured echo chamber" effect for trade-off analysis. Feeding it pros/cons helps, but you're right, it can't handle genuine ambiguity.

Your note on increased editing time for tone hits home. We saw the same, and our "tone guide" hack only got us so far. It stops the worst offenses, but you still end up reworking every sentence to sound like a human wrote it. That's where the time savings evaporate.

Locking down the template headers is a must. We went further and added validation checks in our CI pipeline - a simple script that would fail the PR if the ADR was missing required sections. That forced the AI to populate the right boxes, but it also meant we had to babysit it more. Did you run into any pushback from the team on making the template that rigid? Some of our devs felt it was too restrictive, even though it saved us from factual drift.

The pushback on rigid templates is a common friction point. We encountered it too. Some team members felt it stifled the narrative flow a document sometimes needs.

We found a compromise by making the template validation a two-stage process: the CI would warn on a missing section but only block the PR if it was a truly critical field, like the decision itself. That gave some flexibility back while keeping the guardrails for factual drift. It became more about guiding structure than enforcing absolute compliance.

That pushback on rigid templates is a really common, and valid, friction point. We faced it too. Our compromise was similar: we differentiated between required sections for audit/compliance (decision, status) and optional guidance sections (context, alternatives considered). The CI warning would nudge about missing guidance, but only block on the required ones.

It's a tricky balance. Too rigid and you kill the utility and annoy the team, too loose and the factual drift sneaks right back in. Did you find any particular sections were more contentious than others to lock down? For us, it was the "consequences" part - some devs wanted the freedom to structure that as a narrative rather than a bulleted list.

You've nailed the hidden cost equation. The "hours spent fact-checking and de-AI-ing the tone" is a direct operational expense that needs a line in the budget forecast for any tool like this.

Your point about it being a one-shot generator is critical. That lack of memory for iterative edits destroys the workflow efficiency they advertise. You're not collaborating with an assistant; you're managing a factory that only accepts raw materials and returns a finished widget, with no changes allowed after assembly. For high-volume work, you can absorb that process tax. For sporadic ADRs, it's a net loss.

The comparison to a misinformed intern is apt, but interns learn. This doesn't. The factual drift, especially inventing config, means your verification cost is 100% every single time, with no depreciation.

The factory metaphor is painfully accurate. That lack of iterative memory turns every single edit into a fresh, full-context production run. At a certain scale of changes, it's cheaper to just write the next version from your template and ignore the "assisted" draft entirely.

The 100% verification cost is the killer. An intern eventually learns the codebase; this thing just gets better at generating convincing nonsense. We caught it drafting a deployment process for a serverless function that involved SSH keys. The confidence is the problem - it doesn't flag its own inventions.

It feels less like a documentation tool and more like a very expensive, slightly unhinged rubber duck.

It's terrible for iterative edits. You have to paste the entire doc back in for every round of review, which wastes more time than it saves. That alone kills the workflow for most teams.

Per seat cost for sporadic ADR work is a joke. You're paying for full repo access on licenses that sit idle most of the time. Better to just have a good template and clone it.

On factual accuracy, it will invent entire configuration blocks that don't exist. Treat every output as a lie until proven otherwise.

Yeah, the cost for sporadic work really gets me. If you're only writing an ADR every few weeks, paying for a full seat with repo access feels like renting a bulldozer to plant a single flower.

The factory metaphor others used makes sense, but it's that 100% verification cost that seems unsustainable. You're basically adding a whole new QA step for a document draft, which we don't even do for our own writing.

Is this a common trade-off with all these AI-assisted coding tools, or is Windsurf particularly bad at maintaining context? I'm trying to figure out if the learning curve just never pays off.

The tone guide is a bandage on a broken workflow. If you're rewriting every sentence anyway, you're not saving time, you're just changing the order of editing tasks.

Pushback on rigid templates is a symptom, not the problem. It means the tool isn't integrating with how your team actually thinks. Forcing a rigid template to make the AI usable is a sign you're working for the tool, not the other way around.

And that CI check? It's an extra process layer to manage a vendor's failure. You're adding engineering hours to babysit a paid service.