The author details their journey of creating Outcrop, a knowledge base tool built in Rust, after leaving their job at Stripe. They highlight the shortcomings of existing alternatives like Confluence and the need for speed and simplicity in knowledge management. At Stripe, they experienced an effective internal knowledge base that utilized quick search and document maintenance features. This experience inspired them to develop a better solution, especially as the market for documentation tools shifted focus away from user needs. Initially, the author used Go to build a basic knowledge base, but quickly ran into scalability issues and boilerplate code challenges. Switching to Rust allowed them to streamline the code significantly by leveraging macro crates, leading to fewer lines of code and better performance. They implemented a lightweight version of Google's Zanzibar authorization system to handle permissions efficiently, enabling quick access checks with minimal latency. This system simplified role and action definitions, making user management straightforward. For search functionality, the author opted for Tantivy, which provided fast, responsive queries. They integrated authorization with the search engine to ensure that users only accessed content they were permitted to see. On the collaboration front, they initially experimented with Prosemirror but faced challenges due to its dependence on JavaScript. Ultimately, they chose to port Prosemirror to Rust to maintain performance and compatibility, reflecting a commitment to building a cohesive and high-performing application.