wtf is yard?

YARD is a tool that automatically generates documentation for Ruby code. Instead of writing documentation in a separate file or wiki, you write special comments directly in your code, and YARD reads those comments and creates clean, organized HTML documentation that you can share with other developers. The way it works is straightforward. You add structured comments to your Ruby methods and classes using a simple tag system, things like @param to describe what inputs a method takes, @return to say what it gives back, and @deprecated to warn that something shouldn't be used anymore. YARD reads your code and these comments, understands the structure, and generates a website or command-line reference. It's designed to feel familiar if you've used documentation tools in other languages like Python or Java, since it borrows their tagging style. You'd use YARD if you're building a Ruby library or application and want to give your users (or your team) a way to understand your code without digging through it. For example, if you wrote a gem that other developers would install, YARD creates searchable documentation showing every method, what parameters it expects, what type of values it returns, and what can go wrong. You can run YARD from the command line by just typing yardoc in your project folder, or integrate it into your build process with a Rake task. The tool also includes a few bonus features: yri lets you quickly look up documentation about your code from the terminal, and yard-graph can draw diagrams showing how your classes relate to each other. What sets YARD apart is its flexibility. It can handle not just simple methods and classes, but also custom Ruby code constructs that you define yourself, like special class-level declarations used by popular frameworks. It also stores its findings in a cache file so you can regenerate documentation with different styles without re-parsing your code. The README doesn't go into detail on what output formats it currently supports, but it mentions plans for HTML, command-line text, and XML.