Codebase onboarding

Skill alirezarezvani/claude-skills/engineering/skills/codebase-onboarding

345 Claude Code skills & agent skills & plugins (30+ Agents, 70+ custom commands, 330+ skills, customizable references, scripts)for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and 8 more coding agents — engineering, marketing, product, compliance, C-level advisory, research, business operations, commercial & finance, and your daily productivity skills.

Install

npx -y skills add alirezarezvani/claude-skills --skill codebase-onboarding

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What its author says it does

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Analyze a codebase and generate onboarding documentation for engineers, tech leads, and contractors. Fast fact-gathering and repeatable onboarding outputs. Use when onboarding a new engineer, writing architecture-overview docs for a new project, or producing tech-lead briefings for unfamiliar repos.

SKILL.md

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Codebase Onboarding

Tier: POWERFUL
Category: Engineering
Domain: Documentation / Developer Experience

Overview

Analyze a codebase and generate onboarding documentation for engineers, tech leads, and contractors. This skill is optimized for fast fact-gathering and repeatable onboarding outputs.

Core Capabilities

Architecture and stack discovery from repository signals
Key file and config inventory for new contributors
Local setup and common-task guidance generation
Audience-aware documentation framing
Debugging and contribution checklist scaffolding

When to Use

Onboarding a new team member or contractor
Rebuilding stale project docs after large refactors
Preparing internal handoff documentation
Creating a standardized onboarding packet for services

Quick Start

# 1) Gather codebase facts
python3 scripts/codebase_analyzer.py /path/to/repo

# 2) Export machine-readable output
python3 scripts/codebase_analyzer.py /path/to/repo --json

# 3) Use the template to draft onboarding docs
# See references/onboarding-template.md

Recommended Workflow

Run scripts/codebase_analyzer.py against the target repository.
Capture key signals: file counts, detected languages, config files, top-level structure.
Fill the onboarding template in references/onboarding-template.md.
Tailor output depth by audience:
- Junior: setup + guardrails
- Senior: architecture + operational concerns
- Contractor: scoped ownership + integration boundaries

Onboarding Document Template

Detailed template and section examples live in:

references/onboarding-template.md
references/output-format-templates.md

Common Pitfalls

Writing docs without validating setup commands on a clean environment
Mixing architecture deep-dives into contractor-oriented docs
Omitting troubleshooting and verification steps
Letting onboarding docs drift from current repo state

Best Practices

Keep setup instructions executable and time-bounded.
Document the "why" for key architectural decisions.
Update docs in the same PR as behavior changes.
Treat onboarding docs as living operational assets, not one-time deliverables.