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Engineering Documentation

Write and maintain technical documentation. Trigger with "write docs for", "document this", "create a README", "write a runbook", "onboarding guide", or when the user needs help with any form of technical writing — API docs, architecture docs, or operational runbooks.

by @anthropics · Apache 2.0 New

What this skill does

Create clear, professional documentation like project guides, setup instructions, and operational manuals in minutes. You get structured writing that explains how your work functions and how others can use or maintain it. Use this whenever you need to onboard new team members, explain features to users, or keep your project instructions up to date.

Anthropic · Development
view on github ↗

name: documentation description: Write and maintain technical documentation. Trigger with “write docs for”, “document this”, “create a README”, “write a runbook”, “onboarding guide”, or when the user needs help with any form of technical writing — API docs, architecture docs, or operational runbooks.

Technical Documentation

Write clear, maintainable technical documentation for different audiences and purposes.

Document Types

README

  • What this is and why it exists
  • Quick start (< 5 minutes to first success)
  • Configuration and usage
  • Contributing guide

API Documentation

  • Endpoint reference with request/response examples
  • Authentication and error codes
  • Rate limits and pagination
  • SDK examples

Runbook

  • When to use this runbook
  • Prerequisites and access needed
  • Step-by-step procedure
  • Rollback steps
  • Escalation path

Architecture Doc

  • Context and goals
  • High-level design with diagrams
  • Key decisions and trade-offs
  • Data flow and integration points

Onboarding Guide

  • Environment setup
  • Key systems and how they connect
  • Common tasks with walkthroughs
  • Who to ask for what

Principles

  1. Write for the reader — Who is reading this and what do they need?
  2. Start with the most useful information — Don’t bury the lede
  3. Show, don’t tell — Code examples, commands, screenshots
  4. Keep it current — Outdated docs are worse than no docs
  5. Link, don’t duplicate — Reference other docs instead of copying

Install this Skill

Skills give your AI agent a consistent, structured approach to this task — better output than a one-off prompt.

npx skills add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill engineering
Download ZIP

Official Anthropic skill. Need a walkthrough? See the install guide →

Works with

No terminal needed — Claude.ai works by pasting the skill into custom instructions.

Details

Category
Development
License
Apache 2.0
Source file
show path engineering/skills/documentation/SKILL.md
engineering documentation knowledge-work-plugin