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It sounds like you're describing a Readme file -- which by convention can exist as documentation for any folder and not just the project root. It's not adopted by all codebases but is becoming more common as source browsers like Github will render the readme as rich text when navigating to the folder.

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Yep. For some of the larger projects that I've worked on, I've gotten into the habit of adding folder level READMEs. I don't know if anyone else has benefited from them, but I certainly have myself when I need to remind myself of some context or pitfalls.

Having a sensible folder structure and good folder names is nice, but taking a few minutes to write individual READMEs can make a repo even easier to understand.

readme files might be the natural place for them but in practice readme files sort of tell you about the project, the author, the purpose, examples of what it can do and maybe how to install it.

It rarely gives you what is in each folder, and what part of the functionality each folder handles, although perhaps we should try to change the conventions of readme files to include file structure.

edit: I mean the root readme might contain what is in each folder so you don't have to click on each one to see which one you want to start with.

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