# Technical Documentation AI Skill An open-source [[AI Agent Skills|AI Agent Skill]] (Apache-2.0) that teaches coding agents to write, rewrite, and review technical documentation properly. Built on the Google developer documentation style guide. ## Why Coding agents write documentation constantly, and most of it is bad in the same predictable ways. Walls of prose where a table belongs. Steps out of execution order. Invented flags and defaults that were never verified. No statement of who the reader is or what they're supposed to walk away able to do. The problem isn't the model. It's that nobody told it what good documentation looks like. Style guides exist, but they live in a browser tab the agent never opens. This skill puts the rules in the agent's context instead. It defines the document types, the writing standards, and a review procedure, so the output is documentation someone can actually follow rather than text that resembles documentation. ## Features Covers six document types, each with its own shape and rules: - **Tutorials** — guided, end-to-end learning - **How-to guides** — one practical goal, start to finish - **Concept docs** — the mechanism and the reasoning behind it - **Reference** — scannable, factual lookup - **Troubleshooting guides** — symptom to cause to fix - **READMEs and release notes** — project context and what changed The rules that matter most: - **Documentation contract first.** Before drafting: who the reader is, what they already know, what they want to achieve, what's in scope. No contract, no draft. - **Ground everything in primary sources.** Never invent commands, parameters, defaults, or version claims. Anything unverifiable gets labelled as an assumption instead of stated as fact. - **Lead with the task.** Outcome first, then prerequisites, then steps in execution order, then how to verify it worked. - **Writing standards.** Conversational tone, imperative verbs, active voice, plain words, under 26 words per sentence where it fits. - **Six-pass review.** Accuracy, task completion, structure, clarity, accessibility, consistency. One concern per pass. There's an explicit source hierarchy too: project conventions win over verified behavior, which wins over this framework, which wins over Google's style guide, which wins over general language standards. Local context always beats the general rule. Works with [[Claude Code]], Codex, OpenCode, and GitHub Copilot. ## Installation One-liner install via the [[AI Agent Skills]] CLI: ``` npx skills@latest add dsebastien/technical-documentation-skill ``` PowerShell and Bash installers ship in the repository as well, and manual installation is just copying the skill folder into the agent's skills directory. ## License Apache-2.0. Contributions and forks welcome. ## References - Repository: https://github.com/dsebastien/technical-documentation-skill - License: https://github.com/dsebastien/technical-documentation-skill/blob/main/LICENSE - Google developer documentation style guide: https://developers.google.com/style - [[AI Agent Skills]] specification: https://agentskills.io ## Related - [[My Published AI Skills]] - [[AI Agent Skills]] - [[Claude Code]]