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Salesforce Documentation Retrieval

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Access official Salesforce documentation effortlessly.

by forcedotcom808 stars on forcedotcom/sf-skills
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Updated Aug 10, 2026
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What Salesforce Documentation Retrieval does

The Salesforce Documentation Retrieval skill is designed to provide developers and designers with direct access to official Salesforce documentation across various domains. This skill is particularly useful when dealing with Salesforce's complex and often JavaScript-heavy documentation pages, ensuring that users can obtain accurate and reliable information without the interference of third-party sources. By utilizing this skill, you can ground your inquiries in authoritative Salesforce content, which is crucial for effective development and implementation of Salesforce solutions.

The skill operates by classifying user requests to determine the appropriate documentation family, such as developer docs, help articles, or design system documentation. Once the request is classified, the skill follows a structured retrieval workflow that prioritizes official Salesforce sources, ensuring that the information fetched is both relevant and precise. This is especially important for topics related to Apex, APIs, Lightning Web Components (LWC), and other Salesforce-specific technologies.

Included in the skill are optional extraction scripts that enhance the retrieval process, particularly for pages that are difficult to extract due to their JavaScript-heavy nature. These scripts require the installation of Playwright and are designed to handle the nuances of Salesforce's online documentation effectively. The skill does not support third-party content or local indexing, focusing solely on providing the most accurate and up-to-date official Salesforce documentation.

This skill is ideal for Salesforce developers, architects, and administrators who need quick access to documentation while working on projects or troubleshooting issues. It streamlines the process of finding relevant information, thereby reducing time spent searching through various sources and improving overall productivity.

When to use it

Use this skill when you need official Salesforce documentation for development, setup, or administrative tasks.

When not to use it

Avoid using this skill for code changes or deployment tasks that do not require documentation retrieval.

What you can build with it

Accessing Apex Documentation

When working on Apex code, use this skill to quickly retrieve the official Apex documentation, ensuring you have the most accurate reference.

Finding Lightning Web Components Guides

If you need guidance on Lightning Web Components, this skill will fetch the relevant documentation directly from Salesforce's official sources.

Locating Setup Articles

Use this skill to find setup and help articles efficiently, allowing you to configure Salesforce products without unnecessary delays.

How to install Salesforce Documentation Retrieval

View source

1. Install with the skills CLI

npx skills add forcedotcom/sf-skills/platform-docs-get --agent claude-code

2. 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 forcedotcom

platform-docs-get

Use this skill to retrieve and ground answers in official Salesforce documentation on the public web.

This skill provides a reliable online retrieval playbook for Salesforce docs that are hard to fetch, especially help.salesforce.com, JS-heavy developer.salesforce.com, Lightning Design System docs on lightningdesignsystem.com, and other official Salesforce-owned doc pages such as architect.salesforce.com and admin.salesforce.com.

Optional extraction scripts are available in scripts/ — see the Reference File Index below.

Scope

In scopeOfficial Salesforce doc retrieval: Apex, API, LWC, metadata, Agentforce, setup articles, SLDS, architect/admin guidance
Out of scopeThird-party blogs, PDF fallback, local corpus indexing, benchmark workflows, generating code or metadata

Required Inputs

Before fetching, identify:

  • The exact concept, identifier, class, method, or feature name being requested
  • The likely doc family (developer docs, help articles, design system, architect/admin)

No additional setup is required to use the retrieval playbook in this skill. The optional extraction scripts require playwright — see scripts/requirements.txt.

Official Sources Only

Prefer Salesforce-owned documentation sources:

  • developer.salesforce.com
  • help.salesforce.com
  • architect.salesforce.com
  • admin.salesforce.com
  • lightningdesignsystem.com
  • other official Salesforce documentation pages when Salesforce uses them as the source of truth

Avoid third-party blogs, videos, or summary articles unless the user explicitly asks for them.

Do not fall back to PDFs.

Retrieval Workflow

1. Classify the request first

Before fetching anything, identify the likely doc family.

FamilyTypical SourceUse For
Developer docsdeveloper.salesforce.com/docs/...Apex, APIs, LWC, metadata, Agentforce developer docs
Help docshelp.salesforce.com/...setup, admin, product configuration
Architect/Admin docsarchitect.salesforce.com/..., admin.salesforce.com/...best practices, patterns, well-architected guidance, admin enablement
Design system docslightningdesignsystem.com/...SLDS, Cosmos, design tokens, component and styling guidance
Legacy atlas docsdeveloper.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.*older official guide and reference docs

2. Identify the exact concept

Extract the real target before you search:

  • exact API/class/method name
  • exact feature name
  • exact product phrase
  • exact setup concept

Examples:

  • Lightning Message Service
  • Wire Service
  • System.StubProvider
  • Agentforce Actions
  • Messaging for In-App and Web allowed domains

3. Prefer targeted official retrieval

Do not broad-crawl Salesforce docs.

Instead:

  1. identify the most likely official guide root or article
  2. if search is needed, restrict it to official Salesforce domains only
  3. fetch that official page
  4. check whether the exact concept actually appears on the page
  5. if not, inspect and follow the most relevant 1–3 official child links
  6. stop once you have grounded evidence

4. Do not stop at broad landing pages

A guide landing page is not enough unless it clearly contains the exact requested concept.

This is especially important for:

  • LWC docs
  • Agentforce docs
  • broad platform guide homepages
  • help landing pages that link to the real article

5. For developer.salesforce.com

Use this playbook:

  • start with the most likely official guide root
  • if the page is JS-heavy, prefer browser-rendered extraction
  • check whether the exact concept appears on the page
  • if the concept is missing, inspect official child links and follow the best matching 1–3 links
  • prefer exact concept pages over broad guide roots
  • legacy atlas pages are valid if they are the real official reference for the concept

6. For help.salesforce.com

Help pages often fail with naive fetching.

Use this playbook:

  • prefer exact articleView?id=... URLs when available
  • use browser-rendered extraction when plain fetch returns shell content
  • treat outputs like Loading, Sorry to interrupt, CSS Error, or mostly chrome/navigation text as failed extraction, not evidence
  • look for the real article body, not just header, nav, or footer text
  • reject shell pages and soft-404 pages such as:
    • "We looked high and low but couldn't find that page"
    • generic empty help shells
  • if starting from a nearby guide or hub page, follow linked Help articles until you reach the real article body
  • if extraction still fails after targeted retries, return the best official Help URLs you found and explicitly say that article-body extraction was unsuccessful

Acceptance Rules

A page is good enough to answer from only when at least one of these is true:

  • the exact identifier appears on the page
  • the exact concept phrase appears on the page
  • multiple query-specific phrases appear in the correct official context

A page is not good enough when:

  • it is only a broad landing page
  • it is a shell page with little real article text
  • it is from the wrong product area
  • it does not contain the requested identifier or concept
  • it is a third-party explanation when an official page should exist

Rejection Rules

Reject these as final evidence:

  • broad guide homepages without the exact concept
  • release notes when a concept/reference page is expected
  • admin blog posts when developer docs are requested
  • third-party blogs when official docs are available
  • shell-rendered pages with no real article body
  • pages whose titles sound right but whose body does not contain the requested concept

Grounding Requirements

When answering, include:

  1. guide/article title
  2. exact official URL
  3. source type:
    • developer doc page
    • atlas reference page
    • help article page
  4. any caveat if extraction was partial or browser-rendered

If evidence is weak, say so plainly.

Examples

Example: Lightning Message Service

Do not stop at the general LWC guide root. Find the exact LWC page for Lightning Message Service or follow the most relevant child links from the LWC docs until the exact concept appears.

Example: Wire Service

Do not answer from the LWC homepage unless Wire Service is actually present there. Follow the relevant child doc page for wire service or wire adapters.

Example: Agentforce Actions

Do not answer from a broad Agentforce landing page or a blog post. Find the official Agentforce developer page for actions, or follow the best matching child pages from the official Agentforce docs.

Example: Messaging for In-App and Web allowed domains

Prefer official Help articles and browser-rendered extraction. Reject generic help shells. Follow linked Help articles from nearby official messaging docs if needed.

Example: System.StubProvider

Prefer the official Salesforce reference/developer page where the exact identifier appears. Do not substitute a broader Apex landing page if the identifier is absent.

Non-Goals

This skill should not:

  • maintain a local documentation corpus
  • rely on a local index
  • use PDF fallback
  • run benchmark workflows
  • depend on repo-specific scripts to be useful

Output Expectations

For each retrieval, include:

  1. Guide or article title
  2. Exact official URL
  3. Source type (developer doc page / atlas reference page / help article page)
  4. Any caveat if extraction was partial or browser-rendered

If evidence is weak, say so plainly rather than forcing an answer.


Reference File Index

FileWhen to read
scripts/extract_salesforce_doc.pyUse to fetch any official Salesforce doc URL; automatically routes help.salesforce.com into the dedicated Help extractor and supports browser-rendered extraction for all Salesforce-owned doc hosts
scripts/extract_help_salesforce.pyUse directly when targeting help.salesforce.com articleView URLs; use when the wrapper is not appropriate
scripts/runtime_bootstrap.pyImported by the extraction scripts to resolve the isolated platform-docs-get Python runtime and Playwright browser path; not called directly
scripts/requirements.txtLists Python dependencies (playwright, playwright-stealth) needed to run the extraction scripts

Frequently asked questions about Salesforce Documentation Retrieval

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