Field Notes · 12 Jun 2026
When three getting-started guides compete
How conflicting onboarding paths appear, how to spot them in an inventory, and how to retire two without stranding readers.
Most documentation inventories uncover the same pattern: three “Getting started” pages written in different years by different owners. Search returns all three. New hires open the wrong one. Support engineers paste the link they remember.
Why duplicates survive
Each guide was correct for a product moment. Nobody owned deprecation. Links from release notes and Slack pins kept the older pages alive.
What to do first
Do not merge blindly. Compare audiences: public developers, partner integrators, and internal onboarding often need different openings. Choose a primary path per audience, then redirect or archive the rest with a short note explaining the successor.
Ownership after cleanup
Assign a named maintainer and a quarterly check that the primary path still matches the product. Without that, a fourth getting-started page will appear after the next launch.