# Reducing Single-Person Dependency Through Documentation and Onboarding

DevFeed: [Reducing Single-Person Dependency Through Documentation and Onboarding](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-bus-factor-of-zero-29354.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://arturdryomov.dev/posts/bus-factor-of-zero/>)

Author: Artur Dryomov

Published: 2026-01-30T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Artur Dryomov](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/artur-dryomov.md>)

Topics: [Documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/documentation.md>), [Requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/requirements.md>), [Code review](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code-review.md>), [GitHub](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github.md>), [GitLab](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gitlab.md>)

Tags: [bus-factor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/bus-factor.md>), [collaboration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/collaboration.md>), [docs](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/docs.md>), [documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/documentation.md>), [github](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github.md>), [gitlab](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gitlab.md>), [onboarding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/onboarding.md>), [requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/requirements.md>), [review](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/review.md>), [source-of-truth](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/source-of-truth.md>)

## AI overview

The article reflects on onboarding a new developer and argues that accessible documentation, product requirements documents, and architectural records can reduce reliance on tribal knowledge and make project history easier to understand.

## Source excerpt

Onboarding new developers to a team is an opportunity for introspection. It's one thing to share tribal knowledge, and another to realize that the mere existence of such knowledge can be counterproductive. Recently, I had an opportunity to onboard a new developer to one of our projects. Fortunately, almost everything went right. In a couple of days, the developer was able to contribute minor changes to the project, within a couple of weeks, major ones. Of course, a good portion of this rapid involvement can be attributed to the developer, but I believe the approaches described below helped a lot.