docs-sync-checker

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Deterministic 4-phase documentation drift detector: Scan, Cross-Reference, Detect, Report. Use when skills/agents/commands are added, removed, or renamed, when README files seem outdated, or before committing documentation changes. Use for "check docs", "sync README", "documentation audit", or "stale entries". Do NOT use for writing documentation content, improving descriptions, or generating new README files.

3installs

Sourcenotque/claude-code-toolkit

Added on2026-03-24

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add notque/claude-code-toolkit docs-sync-checker

SKILL.md Content

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Documentation Sync Checker Skill

Operator Context

This skill operates as an operator for documentation synchronization workflows, configuring Claude's behavior for automated drift detection between filesystem tools and their README entries. It implements deterministic scanning and comparison -- no AI judgment on content quality, only presence/absence/version verification.

The 4-phase workflow (Scan, Cross-Reference, Detect, Report) ensures systematic coverage. Each phase has a gate that must pass before proceeding. The skill produces a sync score (percentage of tools properly documented) and actionable fix suggestions for every detected issue.

Hardcoded Behaviors (Always Apply)

CLAUDE.md Compliance: Read and follow repository CLAUDE.md before execution
Over-Engineering Prevention: Only scan, compare, and report. No speculative features
Deterministic Scanning: File existence, YAML parsing, and markdown extraction must be deterministic
Documentation File Locations: Check specific files: skills/README.md, agents/README.md, commands/README.md, README.md, docs/REFERENCE.md
Sync Rules: Skills in skills/README.md, agents in agents/README.md, commands in commands/README.md

Default Behaviors (ON unless disabled)

Concise Reporting: Report facts without self-congratulation; show data, not descriptions
Temporary File Cleanup: Remove helper scripts and debug outputs at task completion
Stale Entry Detection: Flag documented tools that no longer exist in the filesystem
Version Mismatch Detection: Compare YAML frontmatter versions with documented versions
Severity Assignment: HIGH for missing entries, MEDIUM for stale entries, LOW for version mismatches

Optional Behaviors (OFF unless enabled)

Auto-Fix Mode: Automatically add missing documentation entries (--auto-fix)
Strict Mode: Exit with error code if sync issues found (--strict)
JSON Output: Machine-readable report for CI/CD pipelines (--format json)

What This Skill CAN Do

Discover all skills (skills//SKILL.md), agents (agents/.md), and commands (commands/**/*.md)
Parse YAML frontmatter and extract name, description, version fields
Parse markdown tables and lists from README files using deterministic parsing
Detect missing entries (tool exists in filesystem, not documented in README)
Detect stale entries (documented in README, tool no longer in filesystem)
Detect version mismatches (YAML version differs from documented version)
Generate actionable sync reports with exact suggested fixes (markdown rows to add/remove)
Handle namespaced commands (commands/code/cleanup.md -> /code cleanup)
Calculate sync score as percentage of tools properly documented
Support strict mode for CI/CD integration (exit code 1 on issues)

What This Skill CANNOT Do

Judge whether descriptions are accurate or helpful (presence only, not quality)
Generate or improve documentation content (uses YAML description verbatim)
Resolve markdown merge conflicts in documentation files
Validate cross-references or internal links between documents
Track when documentation drift occurred (point-in-time snapshot only)
Fix semantic inconsistencies between descriptions in different files
Automatically fix documentation without human review (auto-fix is experimental, requires explicit opt-in)
Reason: This skill is deterministic scanning and comparison. Content generation and quality assessment require different skills.

Instructions

Phase 1: SCAN

Goal: Discover all skills, agents, and commands in the repository filesystem.

Step 1: Run the scan script

bash

python3 skills/docs-sync-checker/scripts/scan_tools.py --repo-root $HOME/claude-code-toolkit

Step 2: Validate discovery results

For each tool type, verify:

Skills (

skills/*/SKILL.md

File has opening
```
---
```
and closing
```
---
```
YAML delimiters
YAML contains
```
name
```
,
```
description
```
, and
```
version
```
fields

name

field matches directory name (e.g.,

skills/code-linting/

has

name: code-linting

)

Agents (

agents/*.md

File has valid YAML frontmatter with
```
name
```
field
Filename (without .md) matches YAML
```
name
```
value

Commands (

commands/**/*.md

File exists as markdown in commands/ directory
Namespaced commands in subdirectories (e.g.,
```
commands/code/cleanup.md
```
) are detected

Step 3: Count and verify

markdown

## Scan Results
Skills found: [N]
Agents found: [N]
Commands found: [N]
YAML errors: [N] (must be 0 to proceed)

Gate: All tools discovered, all YAML valid, counts >0 for each type. Do NOT proceed until gate passes.

Phase 2: CROSS-REFERENCE

Goal: Extract documented tools from README files and compare with discovered tools.

Step 1: Run the documentation parser

bash

python3 skills/docs-sync-checker/scripts/parse_docs.py --repo-root $HOME/claude-code-toolkit --scan-results /tmp/scan_results.json

Step 2: Parse each documentation file

File	Format	What to Extract
`skills/README.md`	Markdown table	Name, Description, Command, Hook columns
`agents/README.md`	Table or list	Name, Description fields
`commands/README.md`	Markdown list	/command-name - Description items
`README.md`	Inline references	Pattern-match `skill: X` , `/command` , `agent-name`
`docs/REFERENCE.md`	Section headers	`### tool-name` headers with descriptions

Step 3: Build documented-tools registry

For each documentation file, collect the set of tool names found. This creates a mapping of

{file -> [tool_names]}

that Phase 3 will compare against the filesystem scan.

Step 4: Verify parse completeness

All 5 documentation files found and parsed (warn if any missing)
No parse errors on table/list structures
Tool names extracted from each file

Gate: All documentation files parsed without errors. Do NOT proceed until gate passes.

Phase 3: DETECT

Goal: Compare discovered tools with documented tools to identify drift.

Step 1: Compute set differences

For each tool type and its primary documentation file:

missing = filesystem_tools - documented_tools

(tools that exist but are not documented)

stale = documented_tools - filesystem_tools

(documented tools that no longer exist)

Step 2: Check version consistency

For tools that appear in both sets, compare:

YAML
```
version
```
field vs. documented version (if version is documented)
Flag mismatches where YAML is authoritative source of truth

Step 3: Categorize and assign severity

Category	Condition	Severity
Missing Entry	Tool in filesystem, not in primary README	HIGH
Stale Entry	Tool in README, not in filesystem	MEDIUM
Version Mismatch	YAML version differs from documented	LOW
Incomplete Entry	Documentation missing required fields	LOW

Step 4: Record issue details

For each issue, capture: tool type, tool name, tool path, affected documentation file(s), severity, and suggested fix action.

Gate: All issues categorized with severity. Do NOT proceed until gate passes.

Phase 4: REPORT

Goal: Generate human-readable report with actionable fix suggestions.

Step 1: Run the report generator

bash

python3 skills/docs-sync-checker/scripts/generate_report.py --issues /tmp/issues.json --output /tmp/sync-report.md

Step 2: Verify report structure

Report must include these sections:

Summary -- Total tools, issue counts by severity, sync score

sync_score = (total_tools - total_issues) / total_tools * 100

HIGH Priority: Missing Entries -- For each missing tool, provide the exact markdown row/item to add to the appropriate README file
MEDIUM Priority: Stale Entries -- For each stale tool, identify the file and line to remove
LOW Priority: Version Mismatches -- For each mismatch, show YAML version (authoritative) vs. documented version
Files Checked -- List each documentation file with count of tools parsed from it

Step 3: Validate actionability

Every issue in the report must have a concrete suggested fix. No issue should say "review manually" without specifying what to review and where.

Step 4: Report format for missing entries

For each missing skill, generate a suggested table row:

markdown

| skill-name | Description from YAML | `skill: skill-name` | - |

For each missing agent, generate a suggested table row:

markdown

| agent-name | Description from YAML |

For each missing command, generate a suggested list item:

markdown

- `/command-name` - Description from command file

Gate: Report generated with actionable suggestions for every issue.

Examples

Example 1: New Skill Missing from README

User created

skills/my-new-skill/SKILL.md

but forgot to update

skills/README.md

. Actions:

SCAN discovers
```
my-new-skill
```
in filesystem
CROSS-REFERENCE parses skills/README.md, does not find
```
my-new-skill
```
DETECT flags as HIGH severity missing entry
REPORT suggests exact table row to add to skills/README.md

Example 2: Removed Agent Still Documented

User deleted

agents/old-agent.md

but

agents/README.md

still lists it. Actions:

SCAN does not find
```
old-agent
```
in filesystem
CROSS-REFERENCE finds
```
old-agent
```
in agents/README.md
DETECT flags as MEDIUM severity stale entry
REPORT suggests removing the row from agents/README.md

Example 3: Version Bump Without Doc Update

User updated

version: 2.0.0

skills/code-linting/SKILL.md

but

docs/REFERENCE.md

still shows

Version: 1.5.0

. Actions:

SCAN reads YAML version as 2.0.0
CROSS-REFERENCE reads documented version as 1.5.0 from docs/REFERENCE.md
DETECT flags as LOW severity version mismatch
REPORT suggests updating version line in docs/REFERENCE.md to 2.0.0

Example 4: Batch Changes After Refactor

User created 3 new skills and deleted 2 old ones in a refactoring PR. Actions:

SCAN discovers 3 new skills in filesystem, does not find 2 removed skills
CROSS-REFERENCE finds 2 stale entries and 3 absent entries in skills/README.md
DETECT flags 3 HIGH (missing) + 2 MEDIUM (stale) issues
REPORT provides exact table rows to add and identifies rows to remove

Error Handling

Error: "YAML Parse Error"

Cause: Invalid frontmatter -- missing

---

delimiters, tabs instead of spaces, or missing required fields Solution:

Check file has opening
```
---
```
on line 1 and closing
```
---
```
after YAML block
Verify no tab characters in YAML (spaces only)
Confirm required fields present:
```
name
```
,
```
description
```
,
```
version
```
Validate manually:
```
head -20 {file_path}
```
and check syntax

Error: "Documentation File Not Found"

Cause: Expected README file does not exist at expected path Solution:

Verify --repo-root path is correct
Check that skills/README.md, agents/README.md, commands/README.md exist
If file is legitimately missing, create a placeholder with the expected table/list header
Re-run scan after creating placeholder

Error: "No Tools Discovered"

Cause: Wrong --repo-root path, empty directories, or no SKILL.md files Solution:

Verify the repo root path points to the correct repository
Confirm skills/, agents/, commands/ directories exist and are not empty
Check that skill directories contain SKILL.md (not just other files)
Run with --debug flag for verbose discovery output

Error: "Markdown Parse Error"

Cause: Table missing separator row, mismatched column counts, or malformed list items Solution:

Check table has header row, separator row (
```
|---|---|
```
), and data rows
Verify all rows have the same number of pipe-delimited columns
For lists, verify consistent format:
```
- /command - Description
```
See
```
references/markdown-formats.md
```
for complete format specifications

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern 1: Creating Tools Without Documentation

What it looks like:

git commit -m "Add new skill"

without updating skills/README.md Why wrong: Documentation drifts from reality; users cannot discover the tool Do instead: Run docs-sync-checker before committing; add tool AND documentation in same commit

Anti-Pattern 2: Removing Tools, Leaving Documentation

What it looks like:

rm -rf skills/old-skill

followed by commit, but README still lists it Why wrong: Users waste time trying to invoke non-existent tools; erodes trust in docs Do instead: Remove tool files AND documentation entries together in one commit

Anti-Pattern 3: Manual Edits Without Validation

What it looks like: Hand-editing README tables without running sync checker afterward Why wrong: Typos in tool names create phantom entries (documented but non-existent) Do instead: Always validate with docs-sync-checker after manual documentation edits

Anti-Pattern 4: Ignoring Sync Failures in CI

What it looks like:

continue-on-error: true

on the sync check step in GitHub Actions Why wrong: Documentation drift accumulates; the check becomes meaningless Do instead: Run with --strict and let the build fail; fix docs before merging

Anti-Pattern 5: Updating Version Without Syncing Documentation

What it looks like: Bumping

version: 2.0.0

in YAML frontmatter, committing without checking docs Why wrong: Version mismatch creates confusion about which version is deployed; users reference wrong version Do instead: Update YAML version, run sync checker, update all documentation locations in one commit

References

This skill uses these shared patterns:

Anti-Rationalization - Prevents shortcut rationalizations
Verification Checklist - Pre-completion checks

Domain-Specific Anti-Rationalization

Rationalization	Why It's Wrong	Required Action
"I'll update the README later"	Later never comes; drift accumulates	Update docs in the same commit
"It's just one missing entry"	One missing entry erodes trust in all docs	Fix immediately
"The sync score is still 90%"	90% means 1 in 10 tools is undocumented	Target 100%
"CI will catch it"	Only if CI is configured and not ignored	Verify locally first

Reference Files

```
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/documentation-structure.md
```
: Documentation file matrix, required fields per location, cross-reference requirements
```
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/markdown-formats.md
```
: Expected table/list formats for each README file, parsing rules, common formatting errors
```
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/sync-rules.md
```
: Synchronization rules, severity levels, deprecation handling, namespace rules
```
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/examples.md
```
: Before/after examples for adding, removing, updating, and batch documentation changes
```
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/integration-guide.md
```
: CI/CD setup, pre-commit hooks, auto-fix mode, JSON output, workflow integration

docs-sync-checker

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Documentation Sync Checker Skill

Operator Context

Hardcoded Behaviors (Always Apply)

Default Behaviors (ON unless disabled)

Optional Behaviors (OFF unless enabled)

What This Skill CAN Do

What This Skill CANNOT Do

Instructions

Phase 1: SCAN

Phase 2: CROSS-REFERENCE

Phase 3: DETECT

Phase 4: REPORT

Examples

Example 1: New Skill Missing from README

Example 2: Removed Agent Still Documented

Example 3: Version Bump Without Doc Update

Example 4: Batch Changes After Refactor

Error Handling

Error: "YAML Parse Error"

Error: "Documentation File Not Found"

Error: "No Tools Discovered"

Error: "Markdown Parse Error"

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern 1: Creating Tools Without Documentation

Anti-Pattern 2: Removing Tools, Leaving Documentation

Anti-Pattern 3: Manual Edits Without Validation

Anti-Pattern 4: Ignoring Sync Failures in CI

Anti-Pattern 5: Updating Version Without Syncing Documentation

References

Domain-Specific Anti-Rationalization

Reference Files