Radius Author Doc

Documents

radius-author-doc

Radius Author Doc is an Agent Skill for documents published in the radius-project/radius repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.

Create a NEW contributing doc (or expand a stub into the standard Purpose → Prerequisites → Steps → Verification → Troubleshooting format) for a contributor workflow that has none. Not for fixing an existing doc (use radius-update-doc) or for architecture docs (use radius-architecture-documenter).

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QUICK START

How to use this skill

Bring this guide into your coding agent with a prompt tailored to the tool you use.

Open your project in Codex.
Copy and paste the prompt below.
Review files and risks before approving any action.

Prompt to paste

Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/radius-project/radius/blob/HEAD/.github/skills/radius-author-doc/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/radius-author-doc, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.

Copying this prompt does not install or run the skill. Review third-party files before use.

Author a contributing doc

Draft a contributing doc grounded in real code, in the format the repository prescribes.

Which doc skill?

You want to…	Use
Create a new contributing doc	this skill
Fix an existing doc that drifted from code	radius-update-doc
Find missing or stale docs, or assess a code change's doc impact	radius-contributing-docs-updater
Diagram a subsystem / write an architecture doc	radius-architecture-documenter

Backing doc: authoring-contributing-docs.md. This skill is a convenience wrapper — it adds no knowledge that is not already in that doc. The asset conventions, templates, and budgets it relies on live in contributing-agent-assets.md.

When to use

A contributor workflow ("how do I do X?") has no doc, or its doc does not follow the standard format.
You are invoked by /radius.author-doc or by the radius-add-ai-capability agent to write a capability's primary doc.

For an architecture doc ("how does a subsystem work?"), use the radius-architecture-documenter skill instead — it owns docs/architecture/.

Do not use this skill to invent content. Every path, command, and flag must be verified against the repository.

Inputs

A topic (the contributor workflow to document).
A starting code reference — a file, package, command, or Make target the doc will describe.

Steps

Confirm it's a contributing doc. This skill authors contributing docs (docs/contributing/, CONTRIBUTING.md) — guides for how to perform a task. A capability's primary backing doc is always a contributing doc. For how a subsystem works, stop and use the radius-architecture-documenter skill instead.
Discover the current layout. List docs/contributing/ and read the nearest README.md/index before choosing a location. Place the doc in the narrowest section that fully covers the topic; only create a new page when none fits.
Draft from the template. Copy the contributing-doc template from contributing-agent-assets.md and fill it in: Purpose → Prerequisites → Steps → Verification → Troubleshooting.
Ground every reference in code. Link to real files and symbols; verify each command and flag by reading the source or running it. Never invent a path. Links in docs/contributing/ are relative to the file (repo-root files ../../, architecture docs ../architecture/, sibling contributing docs ./).
Update navigation. Link the new page from the nearest index — a section README.md or CONTRIBUTING.md. When the doc backs a capability, follow extending-agent-ex.md to add a capability-index row.
Hand off for review. A human reviews the draft before merge.

Verification

The doc uses all five contributing sections (Purpose, Prerequisites, Steps, Verification, Troubleshooting).
Every command, path, flag, and link resolves to something real — no hallucinated paths.
The doc is within review reach (one round of edits, not a rewrite).
cspell passes:
```
make spellcheck
```