Doc Graph

Doc graph

A per-package documentation graph is a CLAUDE.md beside every package that has source, denser and more current than the root file about that package, mirrored byte-for-byte to AGENTS.md so every agent reads the same thing. Two mechanisms keep it true: a gate script that costs nothing to run and says exactly which file is missing, mismatched or stale, and a gardening skill that reads source and rewrites only what moved. Loom runs this at make doc-check; this skill installs the same arrangement elsewhere, adapted to the repo rather than copied.

The gate is scripts/doc_check.sh in this skill; it is POSIX sh and awk, runs no build, and is configured by a block of variables at its top. init rewrites that block. references/checks.md explains each check and why its tier is what it is; read it before changing a tier.

init: install the graph in a repo

Everything below is one pass. Do the detection, ask the one question, write the files, run the gate, report.

1. Detect the layout

Find what a "package" is here and what makes it real:

ls; ls packages internal pkg cmd crates apps libs 2>/dev/null
find . -name go.mod -o -name Cargo.toml -o -name gleam.toml -o -name package.json -o -name pyproject.toml | grep -v node_modules | head -30

Map the result to the config block:

A Go module whose packages are one level deep under internal/ is the common case and the one Loom's packages/* glob does not cover; the port supports several globs, space-separated. If a directory tree is deeper than one level, prefer listing the parent globs over a recursive walk: a package the gate checks is a package that gets a doc, and docs per leaf directory in a deep tree is noise.

CITE_EXTS is the wider set: every file kind a doc under docs/ may cite by line. Include md, sh, sql, toml, yml alongside the source extensions. PRUNE_DIRS defaults to the usual build and vendor directories; add any repo-specific one.

2. Ask what traffic means here

The template's Traffic section is where a per-package doc earns its keep, and its vocabulary is repo-specific. Loom's three kinds are actor messages, durable-store commits and wire frames. A Go service might have gRPC methods, database tables and channels; a Rust crate might have traits implemented, Send boundaries and FFI. Ask one AskUserQuestion, multi-select, seeded from what the detection found (grep -rl 'grpc\|chan \|sqlx\|tokio::' | head), with an "Other" for the rest. Two or three kinds is right; more than four means the section will be padded.

Also confirm the doc and mirror names. CLAUDE.md plus AGENTS.md is the default; a repo that reads only one can set MIRROR_NAME empty and skip the mirror check.

3. Write the files

1. scripts/doc_check.sh — copy from this skill's scripts/ and rewrite the configuration block's defaults with the detected values. Set GARDEN_HINT to the command that runs the installed gardening skill. chmod +x.
2. make doc-check — append assets/Makefile-target.mk to the Makefile, or the equivalent just/npm script/cargo xtask entry if the repo uses one; match what make help or the README says the house command runner is.
3. CI — add assets/ci-job.yml's step to the workflow that runs on main. Loom keeps it in the nightly cold gate rather than the per-push check, because staleness is a queue, not a failure; follow that unless the user says otherwise.
4. .claude/skills/doc-gardening/ — render assets/doc-gardening/ SKILL.md and template.md into the repo, replacing every {{PLACEHOLDER}}. The placeholders and what fills them are listed in assets/doc-gardening/PLACEHOLDERS.md. The Traffic kinds from step 2 become the template's Traffic bullets and the SKILL's Phase 3; a kind with no grep pattern is a kind the skill cannot trace, so give each one a command.
5. Root CLAUDE.md — add the Per-package docs section from assets/claude-md-section.md. Keep it to that pointer; the detail lives in the graph.

4. Run the gate and report

make doc-check; echo "exit=$?"

On a fresh install every real package errors as missing its doc. That is the correct output: the list is the queue. Do not write the docs in the same pass unless the repo is small (under five packages); for anything larger, report the queue and let the user run garden all as its own body of work, since each doc wants the source read and that is the expensive part. Commit the install on its own under build: or ci:, and the first docs under docs:.

check

Run the installed gate and read it:

make doc-check; echo "exit=$?"

Errors are the fix-now list. Warnings split into staleness (the gardening queue) and citation drift (a doc names a line the tree has moved; fix the citation or the sentence). DOC_CHECK_CITE_LIMIT=0 lists every warning; DOC_CHECK_CITE_WINDOW=N widens the symbol search.

garden <package|all>

Invoke the repo's installed skill (/doc-gardening <package>), which carries the repo's own vocabulary. If the repo has no installed skill but does have the gate, run init step 3.4 first. The phases are the same everywhere and are in references/gardening.md: detect what needs attention, read the source (never infer from a filename), trace the traffic with concrete type names, generate or update against the template changing only what moved, mirror with cp, roll up into the architecture docs, validate with the gate.