Onboard Developer

Skill: Onboard Developer

What This Skill Does

Generates a "How to work here" guide for new team members. While generate-docs documents the codebase architecture, this skill documents the developer experience: setup steps, daily workflows, conventions, common tasks, and troubleshooting.

When to Use

• When onboarding new developers to the project
• When the user says "how do I get started with this project?"
• After generate-docs has been run (this builds on top of it)

Execution Model

• Phase 1: primary agent analyzes the project's setup, scripts, and conventions.
• Phase 2: spawn doc-explorer to write the onboarding guide to docs/onboarding.md.

Workflow

Step 1: Analyze Development Setup

Check for setup requirements:

# Language/runtime
node --version 2>/dev/null; python3 --version 2>/dev/null; go version 2>/dev/null
# Package manager
ls package-lock.json yarn.lock pnpm-lock.yaml 2>/dev/null
ls pyproject.toml requirements.txt 2>/dev/null
# Dev tools
cat Makefile 2>/dev/null | head -20
cat .tool-versions 2>/dev/null
cat .node-version 2>/dev/null

Step 2: Identify Common Tasks

Extract from package.json scripts, Makefile, or CI:

• How to run the project locally
• How to run tests
• How to lint/format
• How to build
• How to deploy (if applicable)

Step 3: Extract Conventions

From AGENTS.md (Do strongly reference AGENTS.md as the single point of truth rather than duplicating its contents), .editorconfig, linter configs, git hooks:

• Branch naming convention
• Commit message format
• Code style requirements
• PR process

Step 4: Map Key Modules

From generate-docs output or direct analysis:

• Entry points (where does execution start?)
• Core modules (what should a new dev understand first?)
• Configuration (where are settings managed?)
• Tests (how to run, where they live)

Step 5: Generate Onboarding Guide

Write to docs/onboarding.md:

# Developer Onboarding

## Prerequisites
- <language> version <X>
- <package manager>

## Quick Start
1. Clone: `git clone <url>`
2. Install: `<install command>`
3. Run: `<dev command>`
4. Test: `<test command>`

## Project Structure
<brief module guide — what to look at first>

## Daily Workflow
1. Create branch: `git checkout -b feat/<name>`
2. Make changes
3. Run checks: `<check commands>`
4. Commit: conventional commits
5. Push and create PR

## Common Tasks
### Adding a new <feature/module/endpoint>
### Running specific tests
### Debugging locally

## Conventions
- **Coding Conventions & Rules**: Please refer to `AGENTS.md` in the repository root as the single source of truth.
- <branch naming>
- <commit format>

## Troubleshooting
### <common issue 1>
### <common issue 2>

## Useful Links
- <CI dashboard>
- <documentation>

Rules

1. Actionable, not descriptive: every section should tell the reader what to DO, not just what exists.
2. Copy-pasteable commands: all commands should be copy-paste ready, no placeholders.
3. Quick Start is king: a new dev should be able to go from zero to running in < 5 minutes.
4. Common issues: include gotchas and troubleshooting for known issues.
5. No built-in explore agent: do NOT use the built-in explore subagent type.