Absolute docs

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Absolute Documentations: Diátaxis-Driven Documentation

Absolute Documentations turns "write some docs" into documentation a reader can actually use. Every document it produces serves exactly one reader need, identified with the Diátaxis framework, written in the project's own voice and docs stack, and verified against the actual codebase before it ships. It writes new docs, rewrites existing ones to their quadrant's standard, and audits whole doc sites for structural rot.

It never writes a full document before the outline is approved, and it never documents behavior it has not verified in the code.

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The Diátaxis Compass

Every piece of documentation answers exactly one kind of reader need. Classify before writing — a page that mixes quadrants serves nobody.

	Serves the reader's STUDY	Serves the reader's WORK
Practical steps	Tutorial — a lesson. Guides a newcomer through a guaranteed-success experience.	How-to guide — a recipe. Helps a competent user accomplish a specific goal.
Theoretical knowledge	Explanation — a discussion. Deepens understanding of a topic, gives context and reasons.	Reference — a dictionary. States facts about the machinery, completely and neutrally.

To classify, ask two questions:

1. Is the reader studying (acquiring skill) or working (applying skill)?
2. Does the reader need action (steps to follow) or cognition (knowledge to absorb)?

Reader situation	Quadrant
"I'm new, show me what this is like"	Tutorial
"I know the basics, I need to get X done"	How-to guide
"What exactly does this option/endpoint/flag do?"	Reference
"Why does it work this way? What's the bigger picture?"	Explanation

The cardinal sin is mixing. A tutorial that stops to explain architecture loses the learner. A reference page that gives advice stops being trustworthy as a pure description. When you feel the urge to mix, that is a signal to link to the other quadrant, not to merge into it.

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Modes

Detect the mode from the request:

User says	Mode
"write a tutorial / guide / README / docs for X", "document this feature"	WRITE
"improve / rewrite / clean up this doc", "this README is bad"	IMPROVE
"audit our docs", "our docs are a mess", "restructure the documentation"	AUDIT

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WRITE Mode

Step 1 — Recon (codebase first, questions second)

Before asking the user anything, learn everything the repo can teach:

• Detect the docs stack (see Stack Detection below) and load references/docs-stacks.md if writing site pages.
• Read existing docs — tone, terminology, heading style, frontmatter schema, sidebar/nav structure, where each quadrant lives.
• Read the code being documented — public API surface, actual option names, actual defaults, actual error messages. The code is the source of truth, not your memory of similar tools.
• Check project metadata — package.json/pyproject/go.mod for the real name, version, install command, supported runtimes.

Step 2 — Intake

Four things must be pinned down before any outline. Answer them from recon where possible; ask the user only what the repo cannot answer, one question at a time (use AskUserQuestion where available), always with a recommended answer:

1. Document type — which Diátaxis quadrant (or which developer-doc form).
2. Target audience — novice end user? experienced operator? contributor? What can you assume they already know?
3. Reader's goal — what will the reader be able to do after reading?
4. Scope — what is explicitly in, and just as important, what is explicitly out.

Step 3 — Outline gate (hard gate)

Propose, before writing any prose:

• the file path(s) the doc will live at, matching the stack's routing conventions
• a heading-level outline with one line per section describing its content
• the quadrant each page serves (multi-page requests get one quadrant per page)
• any sidebar/nav changes needed

STOP and wait for explicit approval. Do not write the document until the user confirms the outline. This is the single gate in the workflow — everything before it is cheap to change, everything after it is expensive.

Step 4 — Write

• Follow the per-quadrant playbook in references/ (load the matching file).
• Write in the project's established voice; follow references/style-and-voice.md.
• Use the stack's components and frontmatter (from references/docs-stacks.md); plain Markdown when no stack is detected.
• Apply the Accuracy Protocol below to every factual claim and code block.

Step 5 — Self-review

Score the draft against the rubric below. Fix anything scoring under 4 before presenting. Present the doc with a one-paragraph summary of what was written, where it lives, and any nav changes made.

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IMPROVE Mode

For "fix this README" / "improve this page":

1. Classify the page's intended quadrant from its location, title, and content. If it serves two masters, say so — that is usually the root problem.
2. Diff against the quadrant's standard (load its reference playbook). List concrete violations: missing sections, mixed purposes, stale claims, broken snippets, wrong audience level.
3. Verify before preserving: every code snippet, option name, and version claim in the existing doc gets checked against the current code. Stale facts are the most common defect in old docs.
4. Rewrite preserving everything accurate and project-specific. Do not bleach the project's voice into generic doc-speak.
5. Single-page improvements need no gate. If the fix requires splitting or moving pages, that is a restructure — propose the move map and gate on approval first.

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AUDIT Mode

For "our docs are a mess" / "audit the documentation":

1. Inventory — list every docs page (site pages, README, docs/ folder) with path and title.
2. Classify — assign each page its dominant quadrant; flag pages that are mixed (the most common finding), misfiled, duplicated, or orphaned from nav.
3. Gap map — build the 4-quadrant grid for the project's main user journeys and mark what is missing. A typical project has reference and nothing else; the first tutorial is usually the highest-value gap.
4. Report — a table of findings: page → current state → quadrant → action (keep / rewrite / split / merge / move / delete), ordered by reader impact.
5. Gate — restructuring moves files and breaks links. Present the map, get approval, then execute with redirects/link updates included.

The audit deliverable is the report and map. Executing it is a follow-up the user approves explicitly.

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Stack Detection

Read cached config first: if .absolute.config.json or ~/.absolute/config.json exists (from /absolute init), resolve the effective config (project file → global projects["<cwd>"] → global defaults) and use conventions.docs.stack + conventions.docs.dir — skip the marker-file scan and write pages under docs.dir. With no config (or no docs block), soft-suggest init and detect by checking for marker files in this order; first match wins:

Marker	Stack	Content format
source.config.ts / fumadocs-* in package.json	Fumadocs	MDX + fumadocs-ui components
docusaurus.config.*	Docusaurus	MDX + admonitions (:::note)
astro.config.* with @astrojs/starlight	Starlight	MDX/Markdoc + Starlight components
mkdocs.yml	MkDocs (often Material)	Markdown + admonitions (!!! note)
.vitepress/config.*	VitePress	Markdown + containers (::: tip)
mint.json / docs.json (Mintlify)	Mintlify	MDX + Mintlify components
none of the above	Plain Markdown	GitHub-flavored Markdown, no components

Per-stack frontmatter, component vocabulary, nav registration, and quadrant-to-component mapping live in references/docs-stacks.md — load it whenever writing pages for a detected stack. Never use one stack's syntax in another (no :::note in MkDocs, no <Callout> outside MDX stacks).

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Quadrant Rules at a Glance

Full playbooks with templates live in references/. The non-negotiables:

Quadrant	Must	Must not
Tutorial	Work first try, every time; concrete single path; visible result at every step; first person plural ("we")	Offer choices, explain theory in-line, assume unstated setup, branch
How-to	Start from a real task; assume competence; state prerequisites; show the steps and only the steps	Teach basics, explain why at length, cover every edge case inline
Reference	Be complete, accurate, and neutral; mirror the code's structure; state defaults, types, constraints	Give advice, tell stories, omit "obvious" entries, drift from the code
Explanation	Give context, reasons, trade-offs, history; admit alternatives; connect concepts	Contain instructions, pretend to be the only valid view, duplicate reference facts

Developer doc	Quadrant blend	Playbook
README	Landing page: pitch + quickstart (mini-tutorial) + links out	references/developer-docs.md
CONTRIBUTING	How-to guide for contributors	references/developer-docs.md
ARCHITECTURE	Explanation with reference elements	references/developer-docs.md
ADR	Explanation, decision-shaped, immutable once accepted	references/developer-docs.md
CHANGELOG	Reference, reverse-chronological, Keep a Changelog format	references/developer-docs.md
Runbook	How-to guide under stress: terse, imperative, copy-pasteable	references/developer-docs.md
API reference	Reference, generated where possible, hand-written prose around it	references/reference.md

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Accuracy Protocol

Documentation that lies is worse than no documentation. For every draft:

1. Code snippets come from the codebase, not from memory. If the doc shows an API call, find that API in the source and copy its real signature. If a snippet is runnable in this environment, run it.
2. Names are exact — flags, options, env vars, endpoints, file paths are copied from source, never paraphrased. --dry-run and --dryrun are different products.
3. Defaults and versions are read, not recalled — from the code and manifest files at the moment of writing.
4. Never document what does not exist. If the user asks you to document a feature you cannot find in the code, stop and say so — do not write aspirational documentation.
5. Links resolve — every internal link points at a file or route that exists; every anchor matches a real heading.
6. Outputs are real — if the doc says "you should see X", X is what the command actually prints.

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Style Core

The full guide is references/style-and-voice.md. The rules that are never waived:

1. One idea per sentence. One purpose per paragraph. One quadrant per page.
2. Address the reader as "you" (tutorials may use "we" for shared journey).
3. Imperative mood for instructions: "Run the build", not "You can run the build".
4. Ban the condescension words: simply, just, easy, obviously, of course. If it were simple, the reader wouldn't be here.
5. Present tense, active voice. "The server returns 404", not "a 404 will be returned by the server".
6. Every code block declares its language. File-content blocks name the file.
7. Headings are scannable claims, not labels: "Configure the webhook" beats "Configuration".
8. Define a term once, then use it consistently — no elegant variation between "config file", "settings file", and "manifest" for the same thing.
9. Warnings come before the dangerous step, never after.
10. Cut every sentence that serves the writer (apologies, throat-clearing, marketing) rather than the reader.

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Self-Review Rubric

Score 1–5 on each axis before presenting. Anything under 4 gets fixed first.

Axis	5 looks like
Quadrant purity	Every section serves the page's single declared purpose; tangents are links
Audience fit	Assumes exactly the declared knowledge — no more, no less
Accuracy	Every snippet, name, default, and output verified against the code
Completeness	Scope from intake fully covered; declared exclusions actually excluded
Followability	A reader can act on it top-to-bottom without backtracking or guessing
Voice	Indistinguishable from the project's best existing page
Stack fitness	Frontmatter, components, and nav match the detected stack's conventions

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Red Flags — stop and fix

• A tutorial offering the reader choices ("you can use npm or pnpm or...") — pick one, mention alternatives in a how-to.
• A how-to guide that opens with three paragraphs of background — move it to an explanation page and link.
• Reference material with personality ("this handy option...") — neutralize it.
• An explanation page containing numbered steps — extract them to a how-to.
• A README longer than ~300 lines — it is hoarding content that belongs in docs pages; split and link.
• More than 3 callouts/admonitions on one page — they have stopped standing out.
• A code block with no language tag, or a snippet you have not verified.
• "As mentioned above" / "see below" — restructure so order doesn't need narrating.
• Documenting around a bug instead of flagging it — tell the user, let them decide.

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References

Load on demand from references/:

File	Load when
tutorials.md	Writing or fixing a tutorial / getting-started page
how-to-guides.md	Writing or fixing a how-to / task guide
reference.md	Writing or fixing reference / API docs
explanation.md	Writing or fixing concept / architecture / background pages
developer-docs.md	README, CONTRIBUTING, ARCHITECTURE, ADRs, changelogs, runbooks
style-and-voice.md	Any prose-heavy writing; calibrating to project voice
docs-stacks.md	A docs stack was detected; writing site pages

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What this skill does not do

• No marketing copy, blog posts, or release announcements — docs serve the reader's task, not the product's funnel.
• No inline code comments or docstrings — that is code work, not documentation work.
• No invented features — if it is not in the code, it is not in the docs.
• No commits — it writes files and reports; the user reviews and commits.

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Companion commands

Sibling commands in this skill pair well with docs:

• /absolute work — build the feature you are now documenting.
• /absolute ui — design the interface a tutorial walks through.
• /absolute simplify — tidy code before documenting it.

Suggest them where relevant; they are always available (same skill, no extra install).