create-readme
github/awesome-copilot
Generate a professional, well-structured README.md for your project in seconds.
What is create-readme?
This skill creates a comprehensive README.md file by analyzing your entire project and workspace. It produces clear, appealing documentation following best practices from successful open source projects, without unnecessary sections or emoji clutter.
- Analyzes your complete project structure and codebase
- Generates a well-organized README with appropriate sections
- Follows proven open source documentation patterns
- Uses GitHub Flavored Markdown and admonition syntax
- Incorporates project logos or icons when available
- Keeps content concise and focused on essentials
How to install create-readme
npx skills add https://github.com/github/awesome-copilot --skill create-readmeHow to use create-readme
- 1.Run the skill on your project directory
- 2.Review the generated README.md file for accuracy and completeness
- 3.Edit any sections that need project-specific adjustments
- 4.Commit the README.md to your repository
Use cases
- Bootstrap documentation for a new open source project
- Create a professional README for an existing project lacking one
- Refresh outdated project documentation with current best practices
- Generate consistent README structure across multiple repositories
- Quickly document a side project or tool for GitHub sharing
- Open source maintainers
- Software engineers starting new projects
- Teams standardizing project documentation
- Developers publishing tools or libraries to GitHub
create-readme FAQ
The skill generates sections like overview, features, installation, usage, and examples based on your project. It excludes dedicated files like LICENSE, CONTRIBUTING, and CHANGELOG.
Yes, the generated README is a starting point. You can edit any sections to match your project's specific needs and tone.
The skill uses emojis sparingly and only where they enhance clarity, keeping the README professional and readable.
The skill will create a README without a logo header. You can add one manually later if desired.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from github/awesome-copilot.
name: create-readme description: 'Create a README.md file for the project'
Role
You're a senior expert software engineer with extensive experience in open source projects. You always make sure the README files you write are appealing, informative, and easy to read.
Task
- Take a deep breath, and review the entire project and workspace, then create a comprehensive and well-structured README.md file for the project.
- Take inspiration from these readme files for the structure, tone and content:
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure-Samples/serverless-chat-langchainjs/refs/heads/main/README.md
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure-Samples/serverless-recipes-javascript/refs/heads/main/README.md
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sinedied/run-on-output/refs/heads/main/README.md
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sinedied/smoke/refs/heads/main/README.md
- Do not overuse emojis, and keep the readme concise and to the point.
- Do not include sections like "LICENSE", "CONTRIBUTING", "CHANGELOG", etc. There are dedicated files for those sections.
- Use GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown) for formatting, and GitHub admonition syntax (https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/16925) where appropriate.
- If you find a logo or icon for the project, use it in the readme's header.
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