document

name	document
compatibility	Built for Claude Code — uses subagents, model selection, and interactive questions. Installs on any Agent Skills client but is tuned for Claude Code.
allowed-tools	Bash, Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit, Task, AskUserQuestion
description	Use this skill to write the human-facing prose about a change — a PR description, changelog entry, release notes, or incident postmortem. Run /document when you need any of those written from the real change (commits, diff) rather than by hand. Pass the type (/document pr | changelog | release-note | postmortem) or let it ask. A precise technical writer drafting from history, writing to the right place (PR body, CHANGELOG.md, docs/releases/, docs/postmortems/). It doesn't write code, tests, or ADRs.

Output style (plain words, no dashes)

Write everything this skill produces (the files and reports it writes, and every message shown to the engineer) in plain, simple language. Keep the technical terms that carry real meaning, but explain each one in plain words so a busy reader understands it fast. Do not use dashes of any kind: no em dash, no en dash, and no hyphen used as punctuation. Use short sentences, commas, or parentheses instead. Clear beats clever.

What this skill does

Your role: the technical writer who writes from the record, not from imagination — and writes 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: a reviewer needs the why and the risk, an end user needs the what changed for me, a team reading a postmortem needs the honest causal chain. 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, on a fast, low-cost model (e.g. haiku on Claude Code; inherit/a light model on other agents) in a subagent:

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 (engineer-described, 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.

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Portability (any OS, any agent)

Written for any Agent Skills client on macOS, Linux, or Windows:

• Commands: git (and optionally gh) are the only CLIs, and behave the same on every OS — run the git lines as shown. Other shell snippets are POSIX reference, not literal scripts: don't assume find, grep, sed, cat, test/[ ], command -v, or node -e exist. Use your agent's own cross-platform file tools (read, search/glob, write) for those, and apply branching logic yourself rather than via shell if/variables/redirects.
• Bundled files: referenced by paths relative to this skill's folder; the main agent reads them and passes the chosen template's text into the subagent prompt — subagents can't resolve skill-relative paths.
• No subagent / interactive-question support? The drafting normally runs in a subagent on a fast, low-cost model, and the doc-type pick uses an interactive picker (use whatever your agent provides — a subagent, per-step model selection, an options picker — and fall back only where it doesn't). On a tool without them: write the document inline yourself following the template, and ask the doc-type question as plain text.

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. Present these as your agent's interactive option picker (AskUserQuestion on Claude Code) — or as plain-text options with the same choices if it has none:

"What should I write?"
  header: "Doc type"
  options:
    - label: "PR description"        → pr
    - label: "Changelog entry"      → changelog
    - label: "Release notes"        → release-note
    - label: "Postmortem"           → postmortem

2. Gather the source material (cheap — let the subagent read deeply)

The main model collects lightweight history; the subagent reads the diff and files.

Run these git/gh commands as shown; do the non-command steps 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 ADR files under docs/adr/ (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 gh available on this system? (GH_INSTALLED)
  • Does the repo have a git remote? Run git remote; a non-empty result 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.

Per-type edge handling the main model resolves before spawning:

• release-note range: if tags exist, the range is <previous-tag>..<latest-tag> (or a range the engineer named). If NO_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 gh when GH_INSTALLED and HAS_REMOTE. If PR_EXISTS, the action is gh pr edit (update the body), not gh pr create. If gh isn't usable or no remote, the PR text is chat-only — don't attempt gh.
• 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 /debug output if it exists). Pass their account as the incident facts. The subagent must not invent timeline entries or causes beyond what they give.

3. Spawn the document subagent

Read agent-prompt.md (lean) and the one template for the chosen type: templates/<type>.md. Fill and spawn a subagent:

• model: a fast, low-cost model for pr, changelog, release-note (drafting from real material is well-bounded). A strong model (e.g. sonnet on Claude Code) for postmortem — root-cause synthesis and contributing-factor analysis need stronger reasoning than a cheap model gives.
• description: "Document: <type>"
• Tools: Read, Bash, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit (Edit for appending to CHANGELOG.md; Bash for gh only when the engineer opts to create/update a PR)
• prompt: filled template with:
  1. Document type + its template (the chosen one only)
  2. Source: commit list, diff command, and (postmortem) the incident facts
  3. Project-context contents inline (project name, conventions) — read AGENTS.md, or CLAUDE.md fallback — + recent ADR paths for the "why"
  4. Output target for the type and today's date
  5. Large-diff note: if the change spans many files (e.g. >25), tell the subagent to summarise by file-group/feature rather than reading every line — it has a bounded context window
  6. pr: the gh action — none (chat-only) | gh pr create | gh pr edit (from the GH_INSTALLED/HAS_REMOTE/PR_EXISTS checks)
  7. changelog: a note to match the existing CHANGELOG.md format if the file exists (don't impose Keep a Changelog over a different established style)
  8. release-note: the resolved version + range

4. Relay the result

## /document complete

**Type**: <pr | changelog | release-note | postmortem>
**Written to**: <PR body shown below | CHANGELOG.md | docs/releases/<v>.md | docs/postmortems/<file>>

<for pr: the title + body, ready to paste, or "PR #N updated" if gh was used>
<for the others: a 2 to 3 line preview + the file path>

For pr, always show the full text in chat (so it's usable even without gh). For the file types, show a short preview and the path. This skill does not commit, push, or merge — it produces the prose.

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Reference files

• agent-prompt.md — lean spawn template
• templates/ — one structure file per type (pr.md, changelog.md, release-note.md, postmortem.md); the subagent reads only the chosen one