Update Technical Writing Without Inventing Freshness
Shashank Agarwal
An updated date should accompany a meaningful change. It should not suggest new evidence when only the calendar moved.
Quick answer: Audit claims, links, code, images and product behavior against current sources. Correct substantive errors, preserve original publication history and explain important changes. Re-run executable examples where needed, and keep historical results dated rather than silently replacing their context.
Review the contract first
For an illustrative MCP setup guide, check the current endpoint, authentication choices and selected product requirements. Old client screenshots can become misleading even when the general concept remains valid.
| Review area | What to inspect |
|---|---|
| Product behavior | Current names, paths and limits |
| Numbers | Unit, period and source |
| Code | Whether the example is complete and executable |
| Links | Actual destination and useful content |
| Images | Relevance and accurate caption |
| History | Original date and substantive update note |
This is a proposed refresh checklist, not a claim that every old page needs rewriting.
Preserve historical findings
A benchmark from an earlier model or price period can remain useful if its conditions are explicit. New results require new evidence.
Do not rename an old measurement as current or turn a team's historical impact into a startup's revenue.
Replace broken teaching artifacts
An undefined helper function can prevent a reader from running a tutorial. Provide a complete bounded example or label the excerpt as pseudocode.
A new screenshot should depict the workflow it claims to show. Decorative imagery does not establish that the integration was tested.
Explain the material change
A short update note can state that the endpoint, pricing explanation or example was revised. Preserve the stable URL when the page still serves the same intent.
The API.market MCP guide provides maintained setup context. The evaluation workflow provides current technical context for agent guidance.
The purpose of a refresh is a more useful page, with its evidence and history still understandable.
I'm Shashank Agarwal, author of Intelligence at Scale, founder and CEO of Noveum AI and creator of API.market. Follow my work on LinkedIn. Drafted with AI assistance.
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