understand-onboard

name	understand-onboard
description	Use when you need to generate an onboarding guide for new team members joining a project

/understand-onboard

Generate a comprehensive onboarding guide from the project's knowledge graph.

Graph Structure Reference

The knowledge graph JSON has this structure:

• project — {name, description, languages, frameworks, analyzedAt, gitCommitHash}
• nodes[] — each has {id, type, name, filePath, summary, tags[], complexity, languageNotes?}
  • Node types: file, function, class, module, concept
  • IDs: file:path, function:path:name, class:path:name
• edges[] — each has {source, target, type, direction, weight}
  • Key types: imports, contains, calls, depends_on
• layers[] — each has {id, name, description, nodeIds[]}
• tour[] — each has {order, title, description, nodeIds[]}

How to Read Efficiently

1. Use Grep to search within the JSON for relevant entries BEFORE reading the full file
2. Only read sections you need — don't dump the entire graph into context
3. Node names and summaries are the most useful fields for understanding
4. Edges tell you how components connect — follow imports and calls for dependency chains

Instructions

1. Check that .understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json exists. If not, tell the user to run /understand first.

2. Read project metadata — use Grep or Read with a line limit to extract the "project" section (name, description, languages, frameworks).

3. Read layers — Grep for "layers" to get the full layers array. These define the architecture and will structure the guide.

4. Read the tour — Grep for "tour" to get the guided walkthrough steps. These provide the recommended learning path.

5. Read file-level nodes only — use Grep to find nodes with "type": "file" in the knowledge graph. Skip function-level and class-level nodes to keep the guide high-level. Extract each file node's name, filePath, summary, and complexity.

6. Identify complexity hotspots — from the file-level nodes, find those with the highest complexity values. These are areas new developers should approach carefully.

7. Generate the onboarding guide with these sections:

   • Project Overview: name, languages, frameworks, description (from project metadata)
   • Architecture Layers: each layer's name, description, and key files (from layers + file nodes)
   • Key Concepts: important patterns and design decisions (from node summaries and tags)
   • Guided Tour: step-by-step walkthrough (from the tour section)
   • File Map: what each key file does (from file-level nodes, organized by layer)
   • Complexity Hotspots: areas to approach carefully (from complexity values)

8. Format as clean markdown

9. Offer to save the guide to docs/ONBOARDING.md in the project

10. Suggest the user commit it to the repo for the team