Revise article on Tutorial Validator for clarity and detail
Updated the article to improve clarity and fix grammatical errors. Enhanced the explanation of the Tutorial Validator's functionality and importance in maintaining accurate documentation.
# How We Built a Tutorial Validator to Automatically Validate Documentation
# Automatically Validate Your Documentation: How We Built a Tutorial Validator
Writing a tutorial is hard. Keeping it correct over time is even harder.
Writing a tutorial is difficult. Keeping technical documentation accurate over time is even harder.
If you maintain developer documentation, you probably know the problem: a tutorial that worked a few months ago can silently break after a framework update, dependency change, or a small missing line in a code snippet.
New developers follow the guide, encounter an error, and quickly lose trust in the documentation.
To solve this problem, we built the tutorial validator — an open-source AI-powered tutorial validator that automatically verifies whether a software tutorial actually works from start to finish.
Instead of manually reviewing documentation, the tutorial validator behaves like a real developer following your guide step by step.
It reads instructions, runs commands, writes files, executes the application, and verifies expected results.
We initially created it to automatically validate ABP Framework tutorials, then released it as an open-source tool so anyone can use it to test their own documentation.
If you maintain technical documentation, you probably know this pain: a tutorial that worked three months ago can quietly break after a framework update, a package change, or a small missing line in a code snippet. New developers follow the steps, hit an error, and lose trust in the docs.
That exact problem is why we built **TutorialValidator**.
TutorialValidator is an open-source, AI-powered tool that checks whether a software tutorial actually works from start to finish. You give it a tutorial URL, and it behaves like a real developer following the guide: it reads each step, executes commands, writes files, runs the app, and verifies expected results.
We first created it to validate ABP Framework tutorials internally, then shared it publicly so anyone can use it with their own tutorials.
## The Problem: Broken Tutorials in Technical Documentation
TutorialValidator is designed for practical documentation quality, not just technical experimentation.
The tutorial validator is designed for practical documentation quality, not just technical experimentation.
- **Catches real-world breakages early** before readers report them
- **Creates repeatable validation** instead of one-off manual checks
@ -54,7 +61,7 @@ For example, `junior` and `mid` personas are great for spotting unclear document
## Built for ABP, Open for Everyone
Even though TutorialValidator was born from ABP documentation needs, it is not limited to ABP content.
Although TutorialValidator was originally built to validate **ABP Framework tutorials**, it works with **any publicly accessible software tutorial**.
It supports validating any publicly accessible software tutorial and can run in:
@ -63,28 +70,44 @@ It supports validating any publicly accessible software tutorial and can run in:
It also supports multiple AI providers, including OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, and OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
## Open Source and Extensible
## Open Source and Easily Extensible
The tutorial validator is designed with a modular architecture.
The project consists of multiple focused components:
- **Core** – shared models and contracts
- **Analyst** – tutorial scraping and step extraction
- **Executor** – step-by-step execution engine
- **Orchestrator** – workflow coordination
- **Reporter** – notifications and result summaries
TutorialValidator is structured as multiple focused projects:
This architecture makes it easy to extend the validator with:
- Core models and shared contracts
- Analyst for scraping and plan extraction
- Executor for step-by-step validation
- Orchestrator for end-to-end workflow
- Reporter for Email/Discord notifications
- new step types
- additional AI providers
- custom reporting integrations
This architecture keeps the project easy to understand and extend. Teams can add new step types, plugins, or reporting channels based on their own workflow.
## Final Thoughts
Documentation is part of the product experience. When tutorials fail, trust fails.
Documentation is a critical part of the product experience.
When tutorials break, developer trust breaks too.
TutorialValidator helps teams move from:
> We believe this tutorial works 🙄
to
TutorialValidator helps teams move from “we think this tutorial works” to “we verified it works.”
> We verified this tutorial works ✅
If your team maintains **technical tutorials, developer guides, or framework documentation**, automated tutorial validation can provide a powerful safety net.
Documentation is part of the product experience. When tutorials fail, trust fails.
If your team maintains technical tutorials, this project can give you a practical safety net and a repeatable quality process.