write-openspec-docs
fission-ai/openspec
Write OpenSpec docs in house style: action-first, scannable, structure-driven.
What is write-openspec-docs?
Switches into OpenSpec docs-writing mode and loads the house style guide to draft or revise pages in its voice. Use when writing or editing pages in the OpenSpec docs tree. Enforces action-first structure, no preamble, and scannable layouts.
- Loads OpenSpec's writing.md style authority for all drafting
- Enforces action-first section openings with answers before explanation
- Structures pages as retrieval surfaces with scan anchors (code fences, bold leads, tables)
- Validates retrievability: checks that questions and product names are findable by scanning alone
- Applies page-type discipline: guides follow reader tasks; reference mirrors product structure
- Ensures one job per slot: one fact per sentence, one question per section
How to install write-openspec-docs
npx skills add https://github.com/fission-ai/openspec --skill write-openspec-docs- Access to the OpenSpec docs tree
- Familiarity with the target page or section being edited
- Understanding of page types: guides (task-driven) vs. reference (product-structure mirrors)
How to use write-openspec-docs
- 1.Run the skill with the page or section name as argument
- 2.Read the target page in full before editing
- 3.Load writing.md and no-ai-slop skill to understand style rules
- 4.Draft or revise using action-first structure: answer first, then explanation
- 5.Place every load-bearing fact on a scan anchor (code fence, bold lead, table, file tree)
- 6.Run retrievability test: verify each question and product name is findable by scanning
- 7.Run glance test: inspect rendered page shape; confirm it looks finishable, not overwhelming
- 8.Show the user what changed and name any unchecked claims
Use cases
- Drafting new user guide pages that follow task-based structure
- Revising existing reference pages to match OpenSpec's inventory-first format
- Converting essay-style documentation into scannable, structure-driven pages
- Editing pages to remove preamble, hype, and compressed multi-fact sentences
- Validating documentation against retrievability and glance-test standards
- Technical writers maintaining OpenSpec user docs
- Developers contributing to OpenSpec documentation
- Teams standardizing documentation voice and structure
write-openspec-docs FAQ
Guides follow the reader's task in sequence; reference pages mirror the product's structure and use exact field, command, and file names as scan anchors. Reference needs complete coverage without compressing facts.
One fact per sentence, list intros only announce the list, one reader question or lookup target per section. Related facts get their own slot, never bundled together.
Scan the rendered page without reading prose: can each question or exact product name be found by shape alone (headings, code fences, bold leads, tables)? If not, the slot wasn't earned.
Yes. If a claim can't be verified cheaply, still write it but name it as unchecked when you show the work. Never bridge a gap with a plausible-sounding sentence.
Match the exemplars in the docs tree: docs-lab/start/setup.md for section shape and inventories, docs-lab/start/installation.md for multi-step tasks.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from fission-ai/openspec.
name: write-openspec-docs description: Switches into OpenSpec docs-writing mode; loads the house style guide and drafts or revises pages in its voice (action-first, no preamble, scannable). Use when writing or editing pages in the OpenSpec docs tree. argument-hint: page or section
Write OpenSpec docs
You are now writing OpenSpec's user docs. Read writing.md; it is the style authority for everything drafted here. The short version, in effect immediately:
- A page is a retrieval surface, not an essay. Structure decides whether the reader finds the answer; prose only decides how it reads. Open every section with the answer, never a running story.
- Choose the page type before the outline. Guides follow the reader's task; reference mirrors the product's structure and uses exact field, command, and file names as scan anchors. Reference needs complete coverage without compressing several facts into one sentence, cell, or paragraph.
- Draft the shortest version that answers; expanding a spare page is cheap, cutting a bloated one is a rewrite. Plain words, the fewest of them: an idea that fits in one line takes one line. Depth most readers skip goes behind a link, and the payload (commands, real output, failures and fixes) stays whole.
- Dumb sentences, smart structure. Write the obvious sentence (actor, verb, object, stating the literal event); never compress extra facts in or take an angle. No hype adjectives, no preamble, no em dashes.
- One job per slot: one fact per sentence, list intros only announce the list, one reader question or lookup target per section. A related fact gets its own slot, never a ride in someone else's.
- Ground items in what the reader can verify: path or folder first, concept as the gloss, real output shown honestly.
- No house template. Inventories open with a list naming every item, then expand each in its own unit after the list, never inline. Sequences take numbered steps (numbers mean order; inventories take bullets). Single ideas and reasoning stay in short prose.
- Every load-bearing fact sits on a scan anchor: code fence, numbered bold lead-in,
**Term**: factbullet, table, file tree. Never only mid-paragraph. - Before finishing, run two backstop tests. Retrievability: can each question or exact product name be found by scanning alone? The glance: inspect the rendered page as shapes; does it look finishable, or like work? Check table-heavy changes at desktop and narrow widths. A failure means a slot got written without being earned; fix it now, don't leave it for review.
Ground rules
- Load the
no-ai-slopskill before drafting; it owns the generic slop patterns, while writing.md owns what OpenSpec's docs specifically look and sound like. - Read the target page in full before editing it.
- Real facts only: flags, paths, and output as they exist in source. If a claim can't be checked cheaply, still write it, but name it as unchecked when you show the work; never bridge a gap with a plausible-sounding sentence.
- A fact lives on one page; everywhere else links to it. The docs tree's README owns the page map and structural invariants; check it before restructuring or adding pages.
- For reference pages, inventory the contract from source before drafting prose. Follow the reference process in writing.md.
- When unsure how something should scan or sound, match the exemplars:
docs-lab/start/setup.mdfor section shape and inventories,docs-lab/start/installation.md(Uninstalling) for multi-step tasks.
When done
Show the user what changed and name any unchecked claims.
If the user asks for the deep, evidence-first drafting session (run every command, one section per sitting, formal checkpoints), follow full-process.md.
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