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Manual

A skill for AI coding agents that reads a codebase and writes a field manual: architecture, state machines, flow diagrams, procedures. Every run produces a published HTML page and a Markdown file committed to the project; optionally a standalone HTML file and a PDF.

Install #

Clone the repository into your Claude Code skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/spdotdev/skill-manual.git ~/.claude/skills/manual

Then run /manual inside a project, or ask Claude for detailed project documentation. The README describes the setup for other hosts (Claude on the web, Codex, Gemini).

Usage #

/manual                          # writes MANUAL.md and publishes a page
/manual docs/ARCHITECTURE.md     # custom output path
/manual --html                   # also writes a standalone MANUAL.html
/manual --pdf                    # also renders MANUAL.pdf

Standing defaults go in the project's CLAUDE.md: manual output, manual html, manual pdf.

What a run produces #

  • A published HTML page, theme aware, with Mermaid diagrams and one fixed design system, so every project's manual looks like part of the same family.
  • A Markdown file in the repository as the version-controlled source of truth.
  • Optionally a standalone HTML file and a PDF for sharing outside a terminal or browser.

Why it exists #

The handover pack I deliver with every project needs an architecture document that matches reality. Writing it by hand goes stale; a skill that reads the code and redraws the diagrams does not.