3rd-party integration guide
Purpose
The purpose of a 3rd-party integration guide is to explain how to use a 3rd-party product with Cloudflare. Although we want to help our customers as integrations between different products can be a pain point, there is a large risk and maintenance cost associated with specific types of 3rd-party resources.
Tone
instructional, straightforward
content_type
integration-guide
Structure
Required components
Title: Short verb phrase in second-person imperative that includes the 3rd-party name. Do not use gerund phrases.
If a 3rd-party integration guide is with a specific Cloudflare technology partner, add a Markdown component that indicates <partner> after the title.
Context: An introductory paragraph on the following steps and what they will accomplish.
Provide context to the reader that is not in the section heading.
End with a colon or a period. Use a colon if it immediately precedes the steps. Use a period if there is more material (such as a note) between the context and the procedure.
Do not provide context for steps with a partial sentence that is completed by the numbered steps.
Mention any unique considerations between the 3rd-party and Cloudflare.
Prerequisites: Tasks or conditions that must be completed before a user can complete a series of steps.
For 3rd-party integration guides, include information about what you need to interact with the third party for the following steps.
Steps: Numbered steps that complete a task.
Link out for basic concepts (Regex, JavaScript, web server maintenance).
Links: May be a bulleted list that references the 3rd-party product or in-text links to the 3rd-party process documentation.
Link to reputable sources within reason.
Optional components
Screenshots
Tables
Step validation
Templates
Single procedure 3rd-party integration guide
---weight: xxpcx_content_type: integration-guide---
# Second-person imperative verb phrase with 3rd-party name included
Context for procedure
Prerequisites
1. Step one2. Step two3. Step three4. ...3rd-party integration guide with multiple procedures that must be completed in order
---weight: xxpcx_content_type: integration-guide---
# Second-person imperative verb phrase with 3rd-party name included
Context for procedure
Prerequisites
## 1. Second-person imperative verb phrase
1. Step one2. Step two3. Step three4. ...
## 2. Second-person imperative verb phrase
1. Step one2. Step two3. Step three4. ...
## 3. Second-person imperative verb phrase
1. Step one2. Step two3. Step three4. ... Examples
3rd-party integration in the Cloudflare dashboard:
Linking to external documentation:
(Discouraged but acceptable scenario) How to with instructions in 3rd-party environment and within Cloudflare dashboard:
Additional information
External integration guides are more costly to maintain because we do not control external UI and we do not typically have visibility into changes the same way we do for internal products.
We publish post-sales content. It might be referred to during pre-sales, but we publish use-phase content.
We publish with the expectation of maintenance. If you want to publish something without the expectation of maintenance, write a blog.