Docs Cockpit Build

docs-cockpit-build

The 7-phase workflow for building a project's module ↔ subtask ↔ spec/plan/RFC association system, from nothing (or from gaps) to a rendered dashboard.

Why this skill exists

The hard part of a docs cockpit was never the rendering — it's the association: which subtask is backed by which plan section, which module's spec actually exists, which RFC explains a decision. That is cognitive work (search, read, judge), and trying to encode it in Python produced exactly the failure mode users reported: modules with no docs linkage, subtasks pointing nowhere, and no highlighted evidence for why a link exists. So the v1.0 north-star: cognition lives in skills; Python only renders. This skill is the cognition — it orchestrates four atomic methods (discovery / reasoning / dry-run / highlight) and a dialogue loop with the user, then hands a fully-anchored doc set to the rendering CLI.

One principle governs every phase: a wrong anchor is worse than a missing anchor. A missing anchor is an honest gap; a wrong one sends the user to irrelevant content and destroys trust in the whole dashboard. When in doubt, mark the gap and ask — never guess line numbers.

How this skill is layered

This skill is the orchestration layer — it tells you which phase to run when. The details live in references (do not restate them; read them when the phase needs them):

| Reference | Holds | Used by | |---|---|---| | references/schema.md | frontmatter fields · subtask forms · code/doc anchor formats · file naming | Phase 3, 6 | | references/association-method.md | the 4 atomic methods (discovery / reasoning / dry-run / highlight) | Phase 1–4 | | references/operations.md | CLI bootstrap · config skeleton · upgrade | Phase 0 | | references/health-check.md | nine-department checkup methodology · three-part report template · five-bucket triage · HEALTH.md writing rules | Phase 5 (admission checkup), 6 (bucket landing) |

Default scope is the whole project — every module's spec/plan, every subtask's anchors. The user can narrow it ("only M07", "only the new sprint"); say so explicitly in Phase 1's output if scoped down.

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Phase 0 · Ensure the cockpit exists

• Goal — a working docs-cockpit.yaml + installed CLI, so later phases have a config to build against.
• Actions — check for docs-cockpit.yaml in the repo root. Missing CLI → bootstrap per references/operations.md (uv → pipx → pip --user priority; tell the user, never install silently). Missing config → run docs-cockpit init, then fill the minimal skeleton (see operations.md · config section).
• Reference — references/operations.md (bootstrap + config skeleton).
• Output — confirmed docs-cockpit.yaml + docs-cockpit --version succeeding.

Codex / non-Claude agent adaptation — AGENTS.md anchor (idempotent). Codex-style agents don't load Claude Code hooks; they read the project-root AGENTS.md by convention. So this phase also plants a routing anchor there:

1. Three-state check: grep AGENTS.md for the substring docs-cockpit:begin (substring match — the actual marker line carries a managed-by suffix, so do NOT grep for the full `` literal).

• Not found → AGENTS.md exists: append the block below at the end of the file. AGENTS.md doesn't exist: create it containing only the block.
• Found, content matches current template → skip entirely (already up to date; never write a duplicate).
• Found, content differs from current template → replace the entire block between docs-cockpit:begin and docs-cockpit:end (inclusive of both marker lines) with the current template below (self-healing — refreshes stale blocks planted by older runs).

Anchor block template (verbatim, including markers):

## docs-cockpit

This project's documentation association (module ↔ subtask ↔ spec/plan/RFC anchors)
is managed by the docs-cockpit skill family. The `use-docs-cockpit` entry skill is
the router — consult it before any doc-association work. Routing summary:

- Build the association system (0→1, whole-project planning, fill anchor gaps)
  → `docs-cockpit-build` skill
- Refresh an existing association that drifted (post-refactor, stale anchors,
  spec evolved) → `docs-cockpit-rebuild` skill
- Just re-render the dashboard HTML, no association change
  → CLI `docs-cockpit render`

Field formats and frontmatter schema: `references/schema.md` in the docs-cockpit plugin.

Phase 1 · Discovery（检索）

• Goal — a full panorama of the project's docs: what exists, who references whom, what's orphaned.
• Actions — apply Method 1 to the whole project: Glob the five doc kinds, keyword cross-grep per module (≥2 distinct-dimension keyword hits → candidate pool), and mark the two gap classes (orphan docs · 0-anchor subtasks — docs-cockpit lint gives the latter list for free (look for the subtask-missing-anchors issues in the lint output)).
• Atomic method — Method 1 · discovery (references/association-method.md).
• Output — panorama table (doc → kind → referenced-by) + per-module candidate pool + orphan/gap list.

Phase 2 · Reasoning（推理）

• Goal — for every module/subtask, a concrete should-link-to target: not a file, a section.
• Actions — apply Method 2 to each candidate: extract the subtask's need X, actually Read the candidate body, locate the §N that answers "why" or "how" for X. No match → record it as a gap, don't force the nearest section. Aggregate the gap list along three axes: modules with no spec · sprints with no plan · subtasks with 0 anchors.
• Atomic method — Method 2 · reasoning (references/association-method.md).
• Output — proposed anchor per module/subtask (path + section) + the three-axis gap list (feeds Phase 6 drafting).

Phase 3 · Dry-run（预演）

• Goal — every proposed anchor verified against the real file content before anything is written.
• Actions — apply Method 3: Read the exact target slice of each candidate anchor (offset/limit for :lines, heading scan for #§N) (limit = end − start + 1, not the end line number — see Method 3 in references/association-method.md) and assign one of the 4 verdicts (accurate / partial / wrong / missing). partial → adjust the range now; wrong → re-run Phase 1+2 for that item or mark TODO. Never write an unverified line range.
• Atomic method — Method 3 · dry-run (references/association-method.md); anchor syntax per references/schema.md.
• Output — verdict table: every candidate anchor → verdict → adjustment taken.

Phase 4 · Highlight（高亮）

• Goal — each surviving association carries its evidence: the specific lines plus a one-sentence reason.
• Actions — apply Method 4 to every accurate anchor: precise line range or heading + one sentence naming (a) what the cited slice says and (b) why that supports this subtask. Can't write (b) → the association itself is suspect; send it back to Phase 2.
• Atomic method — Method 4 · highlight (references/association-method.md).
• Output — the presentation-ready proposal list (anchor + highlighted lines + reason) consumed by Phase 5.

Phase 5 · Dialogue decisions（对话决策）

Entry step · admission baseline checkup（入院体检）. Before presenting any association proposal, consolidate the findings Phases 1–3 already produced (lint issues, anchor verdicts, coverage gaps) into an admission checkup per references/health-check.md — quick mode, reusing what those phases measured rather than re-running checks:

1. Write docs/HEALTH.md — frontmatter per references/schema.md · health-report schema; writing rules (stable RX-NNN ids, real module ids only, anchors pre-verified by Method 3, checkup-day date) per health-check.md's HEALTH.md 写入规范 section.
2. Present the three-part report（诊断 / 处方 / 行动规划）using health-check.md's template.
3. Walk the five buckets one by one for the user's ruling（五桶逐桶确认）— triage criteria per health-check.md.
4. Confirmed items merge into this phase's existing decision flow below; their on-disk landing rules live in Phase 6.

The admission checkup is not skippable — greenfield included. Creating new planned cards on an empty or just-cleaned board is still an admission: the newly drafted cards/docs are themselves checkup subjects — ① their frontmatter conformance, ④ whether each new card links a real upstream doc (ROADMAP / PRD / plan) or is an orphan, plus a wording pass on their desc/scope quality. Departments with no subject yet (e.g. anchor verdicts when no anchors exist) report N/A — N/A is a verdict, not a reason to skip the checkup. Always write the baseline HEALTH.md: a clean greenfield board honestly grades A, and that baseline is what the next rebuild checkup diffs against.

• Goal — the user has ruled on every proposal: accept / adjust / skip. Nothing lands without a ruling.
• Actions — present Phase 4's proposals one by one (or in small batches for a long list — group by module). For each, show the anchor, the highlighted evidence, the verdict, and ask for a decision. Apply user adjustments back through a quick Phase 3 re-verify before accepting. Decision granularity rule: ≤3 proposals → present individually, one turn per proposal. 4-8 → group by module (one turn per module). >8 → present an overview table first, then ask the user: module-by-module, or bulk accept-with-exceptions. Never dump every proposal in a single turn without grouping.
• Atomic method — none (this phase is dialogue-driven; the only edits are user-approved now-bucket treatments).
• Output — decision ledger: each proposal → accepted / adjusted-to-what / skipped-why.

Never silently fix. Anything the validator rates error-level (a missing id, a placeholder id, a status×progress conflict) or any project-specific choice (id naming, sprint assignment, which doc kind a file should be) is the user's call — propose, explain, wait. You may auto-apply only mechanical, semantics-free fixes the user already approved as a class (e.g. "fix all whitespace-only issues").

Proposal presentation format (example):

【提议 3/12】 M07 「Job / Task FSM」 · subtask M07-S2 「worker 从队列取下一状态」
  建议 anchor : @docs:docs/plans/2026-05-03-m07-fsm-plan.md#§4.2
  高亮理由   : §4.2 第 88–104 行定义了队列消费循环和状态迁移触发条件 —— 正是该 subtask 的实现依据
  预演 verdict: ✅ accurate
  你的决定？  accept / 调整 / skip

Phase 6 · Write anchors + draft missing docs（落地 + 补文档）

• Goal — every accepted decision is on disk: anchors written into the module MDs, gap docs drafted.
• Actions — write each accepted anchor in the form the target doc already uses (frontmatter subtasks: object array vs body @code:/@docs: inline — exact syntax per references/schema.md; remember frontmatter wins over body, so don't mix forms in one doc (if the target doc already has both forms, frontmatter takes precedence — write only to the frontmatter form and leave the body section as is)). For each Phase 2 gap the user approved: draft the missing spec/plan with conforming frontmatter and file naming (both per references/schema.md), then link it from the owning module's docs:. New planned cards drafted here meet a minimum bar: a concrete desc, a scope section in the body, and a real upstream link (prd_ref or docs: to ROADMAP / PRD / plan — never a fabricated anchor). Omitting subtasks: on a planned card is the honest state (subtasks arrive when the module is brainstormed), not a lint-evasion trick — and the card still goes through the Phase 5 admission checkup like everything else.
• Reference — references/schema.md (subtask forms · anchor formats · frontmatter schema · file naming).
• Output — edited module MDs + new spec/plan drafts + their docs: linkage.

Checkup prescription landing（处方→subtask 闭环）. Bucket decisions confirmed in Phase 5's checkup land here, alongside the anchor decisions:

• sprint — write the prescription as a subtask (title per schema.md's 4 rules) carrying a @code: anchor at the problem location, under the module named by the prescription's module field; no owning module → ask the user before creating a dedicated health-debt module（「健康债」）to hold it. Sync the sprint-plan in_scope.
• backlog — draft a plan doc（file naming per references/schema.md · 文件命名约定）; the prescription's anchors go into its evidence section, and conforming frontmatter puts it on the dashboard automatically.
• accepted — record in docs/HEALTH.md accepted_debts（item / reason / review date — ledger rules per health-check.md）.
• watch — stays in docs/HEALTH.md prescriptions with bucket: watch; the next checkup verifies these first.
• now — already treated during Phase 5's dialogue（edit + re-render）; nothing further lands here.

Phase 7 · Render（渲染）

• Goal — a regenerated dashboard proving the association system is clean: 0 warnings.
• Actions — run docs-cockpit render and read the issue output. Any ❌/⚠️ traced to this build's edits → fix (loop back to the relevant phase for that item) and re-render. Pre-existing unrelated warnings: surface to the user, don't block on them.
• Reference — CLI.
• Output — fresh docs/index.html + docs/state.json, 0 warnings from this build's changes.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Guohao1020
• Source: Guohao1020/docs-cockpit
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/Guohao1020/docs-cockpit#quickstart--60-seconds

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.