file-doc-task

name	file-doc-task
description	File or update a documentation-planning JIRA task for a customer-facing feature, using the documentation team's standard template. Idempotent create-or-update — safe to run early (draft a DOC-ready ticket from the specs/design to guide development) and again at finalize (reconcile the description against what was actually shipped). For FEATURE or USER-FACING work the skill first asks once whether the change needs customer-facing documentation, and only creates the ticket if it does. Also use when a developer explicitly asks to "create a doc task", "file a docs ticket", "DOC-ready ticket", "update the doc task", or hand work off to the documentation team. Do NOT use for pure refactors, internal-only fixes, or build/dependency chores.
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Bash(gh *), mcp__claude_ai_Atlassian_Rovo__getJiraIssue, mcp__claude_ai_Atlassian_Rovo__createJiraIssue, mcp__claude_ai_Atlassian_Rovo__editJiraIssue, mcp__claude_ai_Atlassian_Rovo__createIssueLink
effort	medium

file-doc-task

Implements STANDARDS rule #4: feature / user-facing work must assess whether it needs customer-facing documentation, and — only when it does — file a linked documentation-planning JIRA task using the doc team's standard template.

The created ticket is for the documentation team to plan from; it is not the documentation itself.

Idempotent — create or update

This skill is create-or-update, not create-or-skip. It is safe to run more than once for the same feature, by design:

• No ticket yet → file a new DOC-ready: ticket.
• Ticket exists but is stale (its description no longer reflects what was actually built, or fields that were open questions are now answerable) → update the existing ticket in place via editJiraIssue.
• Ticket exists and is current → link to it and stop (no edit).

This idempotency is what makes the two invocation points below safe — the finalize pass reconciles the early draft rather than duplicating it.

Two invocation points

A pipeline may call this skill at either or both of these points. The decision gate in the next section asks the docs question only once — once a ticket (or a recorded "no") exists, later runs skip straight to reconcile.

1. Early — draft from specs (optional, recommended for spec-driven work). Right after the design/tasks are reviewed and locked but before/while code is written. The ticket is drafted from the intended behavior in the specs and design, so it is available early to guide development and hold the work accountable to a stated customer outcome. The PR may not exist yet — record Pull request / repo link as pending and add a matching open question.
2. Finalize — reconcile to as-built (always). After the PR is opened. If a draft ticket already exists, fetch it and update it so the description reflects what was actually shipped (and fill in the now-known PR link). If no early draft was created (e.g. a resumed pipeline, or a non-spec-driven workflow), this pass creates the ticket fresh — same as a single finalize-only call.

When to use

• A spec-driven workflow has reviewed and locked its design/tasks and wants an early draft to guide development (e.g. the SDD pipeline, right after its Step 4 spec-review gate).
• A development workflow has just finished a feature or user-facing change and opened a PR (e.g. the SDD pipeline finish phase, the bug-fix pipeline finalize phase for a user-visible fix) — to create or reconcile the ticket.
• A developer explicitly asks to create or update a doc task / DOC-ready ticket / hand off to the docs team.

When NOT to use

• Pure refactors, internal-only fixes, test-only changes, build/CI/dependency chores. These are out of scope for STANDARDS rule #4 — skip silently.

The decision gate (do this first)

1. Classify the change. If it is not a feature or user-facing change (a pure refactor, internal-only fix, test-only change, or build/dependency chore), this skill does not apply — but still record the decision as not-applicable (see Record the decision below) and stop. The marker is what lets the PR gate distinguish "assessed, out of scope" from "never assessed", so an out-of-scope change is not blocked at PR time.

2. Check for a prior decision so the gate is asked only once across the early + finalize passes. This skill has no Jira search/JQL tool — only getJiraIssue, which requires a key — so detection of an existing decision is limited to these in-tools means, in order:

   • A local decision marker exists at .claude/doc-task-decisions/<engineering-key>.json (written by a prior run of this skill) → read it. If it records filed/updated with a doc_task key, go to Reconcile an existing ticket. If it records not-required or not-applicable, stop silently — the decision stands. This is the most reliable repeat-run signal and needs no Jira call.
   • The caller passes a known doc-task key (e.g. .sdd-meta.json's doc_task) → skip the question and go to Reconcile an existing ticket below. This is the reliable path; spec-driven pipelines persist the key on the early pass precisely so the finalize pass can find it.
   • Otherwise, if you know the engineering ticket key, fetch it with getJiraIssue and inspect its issue links for one titled DOC-ready: <feature>. If found, treat its key as the doc-task key and go to Reconcile an existing ticket.
   • The caller passes a recorded "no" (docs previously confirmed not required) → stop silently; do not re-ask.
   • Otherwise (first run, no key, no linked ticket found) → ask the gate in step 3. Because there is no search fallback, callers that may run this skill more than once must persist and pass back the doc-task key to avoid duplicate filings.

3. Ask the developer explicitly (only when there is no prior decision):

   "This looks customer-facing. Does it require customer-facing documentation (release note, user/admin guide, API reference)? [yes / no]"

   • If the answer is no → do not create a ticket. (see below) and note it in the dev workflow output (e.g. "Docs: not required — confirmed by "), then stop. Later passes and the PR gate see the marker and skip silently.

Reconcile an existing ticket

Run this when step 2 found an existing DOC-ready: ticket — either via a passed-in key or via a DOC-ready: link discovered on the engineering ticket (there is no Jira search tool). The goal is to keep the one ticket current, never to file a second one.

1. Fetch it with getJiraIssue (description + labels + links).
2. Rebuild the description from the current workflow context using the same template and authoring rules as a fresh create (see Creating the ticket) — in the finalize pass this means describing as-built behavior and filling the now-known Pull request / repo link, resolving open questions that the implementation has answered.
3. Compare the rebuilt description to the existing one:
   • Materially stale (behavior, customer impact, PR link, or previously open questions have changed) → editJiraIssue to update the description. Preserve the ready-for-docs and ai_assisted labels and the existing link to the engineering ticket. Do not change the summary unless the customer-facing feature name itself changed.
   • Already current → make no edit; just confirm the link. Never fabricate to fill a gap — unsourced fields stay as open questions under Internal notes, exactly as on create.
4. Record the decision as updated (or leave the existing marker as-is if you made no edit) with the doc-task key (see Record the decision below).
5. Report back the ticket key, its URL, whether you updated or left it unchanged, and any remaining open questions.

Creating the ticket

1. Load the config (project key, issue type, link type, default component/assignee). Resolve it in this order and use the first that exists:

   1. policy/doc-task.yaml at the consuming repo's root — set this when you install base-tools as a plugin into your own project (see the plugin's references/doc-task.config.default.yaml for the template to copy).
   2. references/doc-task.config.default.yaml bundled in this skill — the fallback template shipped with the plugin; it is __UNSET__ by design.

   If the resolved project_key is still the unset placeholder (__UNSET__), STOP and tell the developer the doc-task project must be configured first (copy the template to policy/doc-task.yaml and set the real key) — do not guess a project.

2. Load the template from references/doc-task-template.md and build the description using exactly that structure and authoring rules. The rules are load-bearing — especially:

   • Plain English, active voice.
   • Do not invent UI text, behavior, steps, defaults, limits, permissions, supported environments, or unsupported scenarios.
   • Any field you cannot source → leave the placeholder and add a matching line under Internal notes as an open question. Never fabricate.

3. Source the fields from the workflow context:

   • Related engineering ticket → the MOB ticket driving the work.
   • Engineering SME → assignee of that ticket.
   • Pull request / repo link → the PR the workflow just opened (gh pr view --json url). On an early draft there is no PR yet — record pending and add a matching open question under Internal notes; the finalize reconcile pass fills it in.
   • Design or spec / Confluence → from the SDD design doc or linked spec, if any.
   • On an early draft, describe the intended behavior from the specs and design — not as-built — and lean on Internal notes open questions for anything the implementation hasn't settled yet.

4. via :

Record the decision (required)

Every terminal outcome of this skill — filed, updated, not-required, or not-applicable — must be written to a local decision marker keyed by the engineering ticket. This is what makes the skill idempotent and what the client-side PR gate (require-doc-task-decision.sh) checks before allowing gh pr create: no marker for the branch's JIRA key → the PR is blocked.

Write the marker with the Write tool to:

.claude/doc-task-decisions/<engineering-key>.json

(relative to the repo root — the same working tree the PR is opened from). Content:

{
  "jira": "<engineering-key>",
  "decision": "filed | updated | not-required | not-applicable",
  "doc_task": "<DOC-key or null>",
  "by": "<author who confirmed, or the pipeline name>",
  "ts": "<ISO-8601 timestamp>"
}

Rules:

• Write it at every terminal outcome, including out-of-scope (not-applicable) and human-declined (not-required) — those are valid complete decisions and the gate must see them.
• The filename key is the engineering ticket (the branch's key), not the doc-task key — that is what the PR gate derives from the branch name.
• If a marker already exists and your outcome hasn't changed (e.g. reconcile found the ticket already current), leave it as-is.
• This marker is a local decision record, not source of truth for the ticket itself — the JIRA ticket remains authoritative. It is git-ignored by default.

Output

On create (new ticket — early draft or finalize):

Doc task filed: <DOC-KEY> — DOC-ready: <feature> [draft from specs | as-built]
  Linked to: <MOB-KEY> (<link type>)
  Open questions for docs (<n>): <comma-separated field names, or "none">

On reconcile (ticket already existed):

Doc task [updated | unchanged — already current]: <DOC-KEY> — DOC-ready: <feature>
  Linked to: <MOB-KEY> (<link type>)
  Open questions for docs (<n>): <comma-separated field names, or "none">

If the gate answer was "no":

Doc task: not required — confirmed by <author> for <MOB-KEY>.

Notes

• This skill creates or updates a planning ticket only. It does not write docs, edit Confluence, or modify the engineering ticket beyond the link.
• It is idempotent — safe to run more than once. The prior-decision check (gate step 2) routes repeat runs to reconcile instead of double-filing, and asks the human docs question only once.
• Spec-driven pipelines may call it early (draft from specs, to guide development) and at finalize (reconcile to as-built). Simpler workflows can call it once at finalize. Either way, honor the gate: a "no" is a valid, complete outcome.

Related

• references/doc-task-template.md — the exact ticket structure and rules.
• references/doc-task.config.default.yaml — bundled config template; copy to policy/doc-task.yaml at your repo root and set the real project key.
• policy/doc-task.yaml — deployment-specific JIRA project/issue-type config.
• hooks/require-doc-task-decision.sh — the PreToolUse PR gate that blocks gh pr create until this skill has recorded a decision marker.
• .claude/doc-task-decisions/<key>.json — the per-ticket decision marker this skill writes and the gate reads.
• STANDARDS.md rule #4 — the rule this skill enforces.