Designing for Offline-First: A Field Guide

Most documentation assumes a stable connection. Field software cannot make that assumption, and neither can the writing that supports it.

This guide sets out the failure-first structure that offline-first docs need, with the sync-conflict section written first, not last.

What goes first

1. What happens when the device has no connection at all
2. What happens when two devices sync conflicting changes
3. What the happy path looks like, once the edge cases are handled

Writing in that order forces the documentation, and often the product, to actually answer the hard questions before the easy ones get all the attention.