Doc Gardening

Core Rule

Flag drift, never silently rewrite. A doc may be intentionally aspirational; the human decides whether to update the doc or the code. This skill produces a punch list — the human applies the fix.

Kit Context

Before starting this skill, ensure you have completed session boot:

1. Read CODEBASE_MAP.md for project understanding
2. Read CLAUDE.project.md if it exists for project-specific rules
3. Read tasks/lessons/_index.md for accumulated corrections (Top Rules + index)

If any of these haven't been read in this session, read them now before proceeding.

When to Use

Invoke with /doc-gardening when:

• The codebase has shifted (rename, refactor, feature removal) and you suspect docs lag behind
• After a major release, to sweep docs/ and README.md for stale references
• As a scheduled background task (/loop weekly /doc-gardening) to keep drift bounded
• Before publishing a release or onboarding a new contributor

Default Behavior

When the user asks to audit, scan, review, or "give me a report" for doc drift, produce the full doc-gardening report automatically using the Process and Output Format sections below. Do not require the user to specify fields.

Only modify files when the user explicitly requests implement / fix / apply / refactor. By default, this skill is report-only.

Scope

This skill covers:

• docs/ (all *.md files)
• README.md at repo root
• CODEBASE_MAP.md at repo root
• tasks/lessons/_index.md (only the Top Rules section — checks if rule references still exist)
• agent_docs/*.md (kit-only) — checks the per-doc directory listing in CLAUDE.md

It does NOT cover:

• Inline code comments (use /documentation-audit for that)
• Git history, changelogs, or release notes (intentionally retrospective)
• Files under docs/archive/ or docs/legacy/ (assume intentional)

Process

Phase 1: Inventory (first-pass leads)

This pass produces candidates, not findings. Treat counts as leads for deeper inspection in later phases. Do not report Phase 1 raw output as the final result.

1. List all markdown files in scope.
2. For each, extract: file path references, code symbols in backticks, fenced code blocks with import/require lines, cross-doc links ([...](...)).
3. Hold the lists; do not classify yet.

Phase 2: Drift Detection

For each extracted reference, classify into one of these categories:

File path references (e.g., src/lib/foo.ts, .claude/hooks/bar.sh)

• ✅ Exists at the referenced path → OK
• ❌ Does not exist → stale path (HIGH)
• ⚠️ Exists but was renamed/moved (path different than current git log --follow) → moved (MEDIUM)

Symbols in backticks that look like functions/classes (e.g., useAuth(), validatePayload)

• For each, grep the codebase for definition. If 0 hits → missing symbol (MEDIUM). If ≥1 hit → OK.
• This is intentionally lossy — backticks can hold non-code things. Phase 3 triage filters false positives.

Cross-doc links (relative [...](path) links)

• ❌ Target does not exist → broken link (HIGH)
• ⚠️ Target exists but anchor (#section) does not match any heading in the target → broken anchor (LOW)

Fenced code blocks with import paths

• For each import ... from "..." or require("..."), resolve the path against repo. Missing → stale example (MEDIUM).

Versions in prose (regex: v\d+\.\d+\.\d+)

• Compare against the latest version in the repo (package.json → version, or CHANGELOG.md first heading).
• If the doc cites a version older than the latest by 2+ minor versions → stale version (LOW). Skip changelog entries themselves.

Phase 3: Triage

For each candidate finding:

1. Suppress if the file is in docs/archive/, docs/legacy/, or matches .doc-gardening-ignore glob list.
2. Suppress if the markdown line is inside a triple-fence comment (``` to ```) tagged as text or example — those are intentional samples.
3. De-duplicate by (file, line, kind).

Phase 4: Report

Group findings by severity (HIGH > MEDIUM > LOW), then by source doc.

Output Format

# Doc Gardening Report

_Last run: 2026-05-18T14:23:00Z — doc-gardening v1_

## Summary

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Docs scanned | 24 |
| Findings | 11 |
| HIGH | 2 |
| MEDIUM | 6 |
| LOW | 3 |

## HIGH — Likely broken

### `docs/getting-started.md`

| # | Line | Kind | Reference | Suggestion |
|---|------|------|-----------|------------|
| 1 | 42 | stale path | `src/lib/auth-old.ts` | File removed in 1.10.0. Update to `src/lib/auth.ts` or remove section. |
| 2 | 87 | broken link | `[Architecture](./arch.md)` | Target missing. Did you mean `docs/architecture.md`? |

## MEDIUM — Worth a closer look

### `README.md`

| # | Line | Kind | Reference | Suggestion |
|---|------|------|-----------|------------|
| 1 | 12 | moved | `bin/cli.js` | Was renamed to `bin/index.js` in commit a1b2c3d. |

### `docs/api.md`

| # | Line | Kind | Reference | Suggestion |
|---|------|------|-----------|------------|
| 1 | 33 | missing symbol | `validatePayload()` | No definition found. Renamed to `parsePayload()`? |
| 2 | 68 | stale example | `import { LegacyClient } from '../sdk'` | Module removed. Update example. |

## LOW — Cosmetic

### `docs/changelog.md`

| # | Line | Kind | Reference | Suggestion |
|---|------|------|-----------|------------|
| 1 | 5 | broken anchor | `[#core-rule](./rules.md#core-rule)` | Section was renamed to `## The Core Rule`. |

## Suggested actions

- `docs/getting-started.md` has the most drift — review next.
- 4 findings reference paths that moved during the auth refactor (commits a1b2c3d..d4e5f6a) — bulk-fix candidate.
- Consider adding `docs/legacy/v0/` to `.doc-gardening-ignore` if those files are intentionally frozen.

Run Mode

See .claude/skills/_shared/blocks/mode-detection.md.

Loop / Schedule Integration

/loop weekly /doc-gardening mode:headless
/schedule monthly /doc-gardening mode:headless

In headless mode, findings are appended to tasks/todo.md → ## Doc Drift so the next human session sees them.

Notes

• This skill is complementary to /documentation-audit. The latter assesses completeness and clarity; this skill watches for drift between docs and code.
• The detection is intentionally heuristic — false positives are expected. The triage phase suppresses obvious ones; the rest are leads for human review.
• If a kind of finding has 10+ false positives across runs, propose adding it to .doc-gardening-ignore rather than tweaking the detector.
• Doc-gardening complements /quality-audit — together they form the "Friday cleanup" recipe inspired by OpenAI's harness engineering pattern.