documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing

documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from andrewsrigom/agent-skills. It costs 50 tokens per session (665 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for writing technical documentation so each page has one clear purpose: teaching, completing a task, listing facts, or explaining ideas. It describes Diátaxis, a method that separates these four kinds of documentation.

In plain words
What is it for?
For restructuring developer or product documentation, choosing the right page type, improving headings and examples, and moving unrelated material into linked pages.
Why use it?
It helps fix pages that mix tutorials, instructions, reference material, and explanations, which can make the needed information hard to find.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit For restructuring developer or product documentation, choosing the right page type, improving headings and examples, and moving unrelated material into linked pages.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add andrewsrigom/agent-skills --skill documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/andrewsrigom/agent-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andrewsrigom/agent-skills/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 50 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 665 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00050 $0.00665
Opus 5 $0.00025 $0.00332
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00133
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00067

Measured 11d ago against content hash e150673d4c14, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 11d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

documentation/documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing/SKILL.md · 83 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 83 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Documentation Diataxis And Technical Writing

Use this skill when the real problem is doc shape, not missing words.

Scope

  • choosing whether a page should be tutorial, how-to, reference, or explanation
  • restructuring mixed or confusing docs
  • splitting one overloaded page into clearer sibling docs
  • tightening audience assumptions, headings, and examples
  • improving developer docs, product docs, and internal engineering docs

Not for

  • autogenerated API reference
  • changelogs or release notes
  • marketing copy
  • docs that are already narrow, obvious, and structurally correct

Default path

  1. State the reader and their immediate need in one sentence.
  2. Choose one primary doc type:
    • tutorial when the reader should learn by doing
    • how-to when the reader wants one task completed
    • reference when the reader needs exact facts quickly
    • explanation when the reader needs concepts, rationale, or tradeoffs
  3. Rewrite the outline so every section serves that one doc type.
  4. Cut, move, or link any content that belongs to a different doc type.
  5. Keep headings and examples aligned to the chosen purpose.
  6. Make adjacent needs explicit through links instead of stuffing them into the same page.

When to deviate

  • A landing page or top-level README can contain a thin mix of orientation and links, but each section should still have a clear role.
  • A short how-to may include a tiny reference table if lookup is essential to finishing the task.
  • A tutorial can include brief explanation only when it directly unblocks the next step.

Guardrails

  • Do not treat Diataxis as taxonomy theater; use it to cut ambiguity.
  • Do not mix task flow with long conceptual digressions.
  • Do not bury reference facts inside narrative prose.
  • Do not assume a beginner audience unless the page is explicitly onboarding.
  • Keep examples short and directly tied to the page goal.

Avoid

  • one page trying to teach, explain, and act as reference at the same time
  • setup sections that become mini tutorials inside a how-to
  • long rationale blocks inside lookup-oriented docs
  • writing for the vaguest possible audience
  • leaving cut content in place just because it is technically useful

Read the full file on GitHub · 83 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 11d ago First seen · 83 lines · 50 tokens per session scan A e150673d4c14

Subscribe to this mod's changes

documentation-diataxis-and-technical-writing is a skill published in the GitHub repository andrewsrigom/agent-skills (2 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 665 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.

obra/superpowers · 21 tokens

local-ai-agents

Build local-first AI agents that run entirely on a developer workstation with Microsoft Foundry Local and Qwen function-calling models. Covers Small Language Models (SLMs), the OpenAI-compatible local endpoint, sandboxed local tools, local RAG with Chroma, local MCP servers, hybrid cloud/local routing, and the…

microsoft/ai-agents-for-beginners · 200 tokens

next-cache-components-adoption

Turn on Cache Components in a Next.js app and resolve the blocking routes it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable, adopt, or migrate to Cache Components, flip the cacheComponents flag, work through a flood of blocking-prerender / instant validation errors, run the cache-components-instant-false codemod, or…

vercel/next.js · 95 tokens

insight-error-page

Write or audit an insight-kind error page for the Next.js dev overlay. Use when creating a new errors/ .mdx page, auditing an existing one, or checking that a page matches the framework fix cards. Covers page structure, title alignment, FixCard cards with Copy prompt button, code snippets, terminology verification…

vercel/next.js · 83 tokens

next-cache-components-optimizer

Drive a Next.js route to instant navigation by setting up an agentic loop, under Cache Components / PPR, on initial load (hard navigation) and client-side navigation (soft navigation). Encode the goal as a failing @next/playwright instant() e2e and work it to green, one verified route at a time; the shipped test then…

vercel/next.js · 170 tokens

next-partial-prefetching-adoption

Turn on Partial Prefetching in a Next.js app and work through the insights it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable or adopt Partial Prefetching, flip the partialPrefetching flag, opt routes in with export const prefetch = 'partial', audit Link prefetch={true} behavior, preserve existing prefetched UI with…

vercel/next.js · 103 tokens