Gh archive

gh-archive

Capture the current state of a project at the end of a development session by orchestrating two existing skills: readme (for README.md) and planning-with-files (for project status tracking). This skill automates the documentation step you'd otherwise do manually before stepping away.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather session context

Understand what happened during this session so the documentation reflects reality:

• git log --oneline -20 — recent commits
• git branch --show-current — current branch
• gh pr list --state merged --limit 5 — recently merged PRs (skip if gh CLI is unavailable)
• git diff --stat HEAD~10 — scope of recent changes (adjust range based on session length)

Take note of key themes: what features were added, what bugs were fixed, what was refactored. This context informs both the README update and the status files.

Step 2: Detect language

Check existing documentation for written language:

1. Read README.md if it exists
2. Check files in doc/ or docs/ if they exist
3. Use the detected language for all generated content
4. Default to English if no existing documentation is found

If the user explicitly specifies a language, use that instead regardless of what exists.

Step 3: Detect or create documentation directory

Look for an existing documentation directory in this order:

1. docs/ exists → use it
2. doc/ exists → use it
3. Neither exists → create doc/ with mkdir -p doc

Store the resolved path (e.g., docs/ or doc/) as {doc_dir}. Every file created in Steps 5 must go inside this directory — never in the project root.

Step 4: Update README.md

Invoke the readme skill to update or create the project's README.md.

Skill: readme

The readme skill handles its own detection of project structure, metadata, and content. Let it do its job — no need to pre-process anything for it.

Step 5: Update project status files

Invoke the planning-with-files skill to capture current project status.

Skill: planning-with-files

Directory override: The planning-with-files skill normally creates task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md in the project root. For gh-archive, all three files must go inside {doc_dir}/ (the directory resolved in Step 3). Concretely:

• Write {doc_dir}/task_plan.md (not ./task_plan.md)
• Write {doc_dir}/findings.md (not ./findings.md)
• Write {doc_dir}/progress.md (not ./progress.md)

If these files already exist in {doc_dir}/, update them to reflect the current session. If they exist in the project root but not in {doc_dir}/, move them into {doc_dir}/ first, then update.

Step 6: Report what was captured

Provide a brief summary:

• Whether README.md was created or updated, and what changed
• Which status files were created or updated in the documentation directory
• Key highlights from the session that were documented