Onboard

Skill yash-gadodia/claude-init/.claude/skills/onboard

Quick onboarding to an existing codebase. Generates a mental model of the architecture, key patterns, and how things connect. Use when joining a new repo or when a teammate needs to get up to speed fast.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add yash-gadodia/claude-init --skill onboard

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

5 stars5 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

SKILL.md

2.6 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Onboard: Get Up to Speed Fast

You are onboarding to this codebase. Your goal is to build a complete mental model and share it concisely.

If $ARGUMENTS is provided, focus on that area (e.g., "auth", "payments", "API layer").

Process

Phase 1: Structural Scan (use subagents in parallel)

Agent 1 — Architecture:

Read CLAUDE.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, README, any docs/ directory
Map the directory tree (top 3 levels)
Identify framework, language, key dependencies

Agent 2 — Data Layer:

Find schema files (Prisma, migrations, models)
Map entities and relationships
Identify the ORM/query layer

Agent 3 — API Surface:

Find route definitions, controllers, resolvers
Map endpoints/operations to handlers
Identify auth middleware, validation

Agent 4 — Frontend (if applicable):

Map pages/routes to components
Identify state management
Find shared UI components

Phase 1.5: ARCHITECTURE.md Freshness Check

If ARCHITECTURE.md exists:

Compare its Directory Structure section against the actual top-level directories
Check if modules/services mentioned still exist
Check if new top-level directories have appeared that aren't documented
If stale sections are found, flag them in the output and offer to update ARCHITECTURE.md

If ARCHITECTURE.md does NOT exist:

Note this as a gap in the output
Suggest running /claude-init or /update to generate one

Phase 2: Pattern Extraction

From the codebase, identify:

The happy path: How does a typical request flow from user action to database and back?
Error handling pattern: How are errors caught, logged, and surfaced?
Auth pattern: How is authentication/authorization enforced?
Testing pattern: What's tested, what's not, how to run tests?
Deploy pattern: How does code get to production?

Phase 3: Output

Present a concise onboarding doc:

# [Project Name] — Onboarding

## What This Does
<1-2 sentences>

## Stack
<language, framework, DB, key deps>

## Architecture
<ASCII diagram or bullet-point flow>

## Key Patterns
<The 3-5 most important patterns to follow>

## Where Things Live
<Map of important directories/files>

## How to Run
<Dev server, tests, build, deploy commands>

## Gotchas
<Non-obvious things that will trip you up>

Keep the output under 100 lines. Density over verbosity.