
Document
FreeAutomate your technical documentation from change history.
Free · Opens the source repo
What Document does
The Document skill is designed to assist developers and technical writers in generating essential documentation based on the actual change history of a project. It supports four types of documents: pull request descriptions, changelog entries, release notes, and postmortems. Each document is crafted using the relevant commit history and diffs, ensuring that the content is accurate and directly tied to the changes that have occurred in the codebase. This skill is particularly useful for teams that prioritize clear communication of changes and need to maintain comprehensive records of their development process.
When you invoke the Document skill, it intelligently determines the type of document you need based on the context of your work. If you are on a feature branch with changes ready for review, it can generate a pull request description. For merged changes, it can append a new entry to the changelog. If you have tagged a version, it can create release notes for end users. In the case of incidents, it can help compile a postmortem report. The skill operates by reading the git history and relevant files, ensuring that every document reflects the true state of the project.
This skill is ideal for development teams looking to streamline their documentation process. By automating the generation of these documents, it reduces the manual effort required to keep documentation up to date, allowing developers to focus more on coding rather than writing. The output is tailored for specific audiences, whether they are reviewers, developers, or end users, making it a versatile tool in any software development lifecycle.
Overall, Document enhances productivity by integrating documentation practices directly into the workflow, ensuring that every change is well-documented and accessible. This leads to better project management and clearer communication within teams and with stakeholders.
When to use it
Use this skill when you need to create documentation based on recent changes in your codebase, such as pull requests or release notes.
When not to use it
This skill is not suitable for generating code, tests, or specifications, as it focuses solely on documentation.
What you can build with it
Creating a Pull Request Description
When you've made changes on a feature branch, use the Document skill to automatically generate a clear and concise pull request description for reviewers.
Updating the Changelog
After merging changes, invoke the skill to append a new entry to your changelog, ensuring that all updates are documented in one place.
Generating Release Notes
When tagging a new version, use the Document skill to create user-friendly release notes that summarize the changes and improvements.
How to install Document
View source1. Install with the skills CLI
npx skills add jsmastery-pro/skills/document --agent claude-code2. Or install it manually
Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.
Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs
Inside SKILL.md
Written by jsmastery-proOutput style (plain words, no dashes, no hyphens)
<!-- OUTPUT-STYLE:START -->Write everything this skill produces, files and messages alike, in plain simple language. Talk to the reader as you, warm and direct like a colleague, and present every step as a recommendation they may run or skip, never an order. Keep technical terms that carry real meaning; explain each in plain words. Never use a dash or a hyphen as punctuation: no em dash, no en dash, and no hyphenated compounds. Write read only, not read-only. Say it in simple words, or reword the sentence. Code, file paths, command flags, and values other skills match on keep their hyphens. Use short sentences, commas, or parentheses. Clear beats clever.
What this skill does
Your role: the technical writer who writes from the record, not from imagination, and for the reader, not the author. Every sentence traces to something that actually happened (a commit, a diff, an incident fact you were given), and every document is pitched at whoever has to act on it (audience column below). You never invent a timeline entry, a cause, or a change that isn't in the source.
Generates one of four document types from the real change history. The main thread writes the document itself; the only thing it may offload is reading, and only for a very large diff, to a read only scout subagent on the cheapest model (Claude Code: haiku):
| Type | Source | Audience | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
pr | branch commits + diff vs base | reviewers | PR title + body (chat; optionally gh pr create/edit) |
changelog | merged change | developers | entry appended to CHANGELOG.md (Keep a Changelog) |
release-note | a tag/version range | end users | docs/releases/<version>.md (or chat) |
postmortem | an incident (described by the engineer, plus any /debug record) | team | docs/postmortems/<date>-<slug>.md |
Acts. Asks at most one question (which type) when it can't be inferred, and (for postmortems) asks for the incident facts it can't read from git.
Artifact ownership
PR text, CHANGELOG.md, docs/releases/, docs/postmortems/ (owned by this skill). It writes nothing else.
Portability (any OS, any agent)
Written for any Agent Skills client on macOS, Linux, or Windows:
- Commands:
git(and optionallygh) are the only CLIs, and behave the same on every OS, run thegitlines as shown. Other shell snippets are POSIX reference, not literal scripts: don't assumefind,grep,sed,cat,test/[ ],command -v, ornode -eexist. Use your agent's own cross platform file tools (read, search/glob, write) for those, and apply branching logic yourself rather than via shellif/variables/redirects. - Bundled files: referenced by paths relative to this skill's folder. The main thread resolves this skill's folder to an absolute path (it already resolves these relative paths, so it knows the folder) and reads them itself at write time (Step 3):
agent-prompt.mdand the one template for the chosen type. - No interactive question support? The doc type pick uses an interactive picker where the agent has one; without it, ask the doc type question as plain text with the same options.
Execution
1. Determine the document type
- If passed as an argument (
pr,changelog,release-note,postmortem): use it. - Otherwise infer from context where obvious (on a feature branch ahead of base →
pr; just tagged a version →release-note), then confirm or ask with one question. Mark the inferred type(recommended); the picker adds a free text custom slot last automatically. Present these as your agent's interactive option picker (AskUserQuestionon Claude Code), or as plain text options with the same choices (custom option last) if it has none:
"What should I write?"
header: "Doc type"
options:
- label: "PR description" → pr # mark (recommended) if inferred
- label: "Changelog entry" → changelog
- label: "Release notes" → release-note
- label: "Postmortem" → postmortem
2. Gather the source material
Collect the lightweight history below, then read the diff and files yourself at write time (a scout subagent may do the reading for a very large diff).
Run these git/gh commands as shown; do the steps that are not commands with your agent's own file tools and your own branching logic.
# base branch: use `main` if it exists, otherwise `master`
git rev-parse --verify main
# current branch
git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD
# pr / changelog: the branch change set (BASE = the base branch above)
git log --oneline "BASE..HEAD"
git diff --name-only "BASE...HEAD"
# release-note: needs tags. List them; if there are none, fall back gracefully (treat as NO_TAGS).
git tag --sort=-creatordate
- context for the "why": list the spec files under
docs/specs/(names starting with a digit) and take the 3 most recently modified (paths only) using your file/glob tools. - pr only: three checks (record each result for step 2's edge handling):
- Is
ghavailable on this system? (GH_INSTALLED) - Does the repo have a git remote? Run
git remote; a result that is not empty means HAS_REMOTE. - Does a PR already exist? Run
gh pr view --json number -q .number. If it prints a PR number, treat that as PR_EXISTS; if it errors/prints nothing, no PR exists.
- Is
Per type edge handling the main thread resolves before writing:
release-noterange: if tags exist, the range is<previous-tag>..<latest-tag>(or a range the engineer named). IfNO_TAGS, don't guess, ask: "No version tags found. Give me a version name and range (e.g.v1.0.0, covering<commit>..HEAD), or I'll cover all commits since the first one." Pass the resolved range/version to the subagent.- pr + gh: only offer to create/update the PR via
ghwhenGH_INSTALLEDandHAS_REMOTE. IfPR_EXISTS, the action isgh pr edit(update the body), notgh pr create. If gh isn't usable or no remote, the PR text is chat only, don't attemptgh. Always confirm before runningghand before any push (opening/updating a PR is an outward action): show the body, then ask. This holds regardless of theAGENTS.md## Gitsetting; the setting decides whether the workflow drives PRs at all (integration: off→ produce the text, never push or open a PR unless the engineer asks here). - postmortem: git won't contain the incident narrative. Ask the engineer for the essentials if not already provided: what broke, when (with timezone), user impact, how it was detected, and the root cause/fix (point them to any
/debugoutput if it exists). Pass their account as the incident facts. The subagent must not invent timeline entries or causes beyond what they give.
3. Write the document (main thread)
Resolve this skill's folder to an absolute path (you already resolve these relative paths, so you know the folder) and Read agent-prompt.md and the one template for the chosen type, templates/<type>.md, now (only now, at write time). Follow agent-prompt.md and write the document yourself. Do not spawn a writer; for a postmortem, the root cause synthesis is yours to reason through carefully on the main thread.
The inputs to apply:
- Document type + its template (the chosen one only; read it)
- Source: commit list, diff command, and (postmortem) the incident facts. Read the diff yourself; for a very large diff (e.g. >25 files), offload the reading to a
scoutsubagent (haiku) that returns a compact summary by file group/feature, and write from that - Project context contents (project name, conventions), read
AGENTS.md, orCLAUDE.mdfallback, + recent spec paths for the "why" - Output target for the type and today's date
- pr: the gh action,
none (chat-only)|gh pr create|gh pr edit(from theGH_INSTALLED/HAS_REMOTE/PR_EXISTSchecks) - changelog: match the existing
CHANGELOG.mdformat if the file exists (don't impose Keep a Changelog over a different established style) release-note: the resolved version + range
4. Relay the result
Lead with the type and where it landed; for pr the body IS the deliverable, so show it in full (per docs/conventions.md). Template:
## /document <pr | changelog | release-note | postmortem> · <PR body below | CHANGELOG.md | docs/releases/<v>.md | docs/postmortems/<file> | PR #N updated>
<for pr: the title + full body, ready to paste · always shown in chat so it works without gh>
<for the others: a 2 to 3 line preview>
Scope: ticked `Document it` (or "no scope row matched"; omit if not on the scope)
This skill does not commit, push, or merge; it produces the prose (and ticks the Document it box per the closing gate above, the only scope edit it makes).
Reference files
agent-prompt.md: the writing guide the main thread reads and follows at write time (Step 3)templates/: one structure file per type (pr.md,changelog.md,release-note.md,postmortem.md); the main thread reads only the chosen one at write time
Frequently asked questions about Document
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