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/bmad-document-project

BROWNFIELD planning input. Scans an existing codebase READ-ONLY and writes project-documentation.md — ground truth for stack, structure, key flows, conventions, and integration points — so downstream BMAD planning skills start from reality. Does NOT modify code; produces only

From plugin
claude-code-bmad-skills
47320 skills3 agents
Install
$ npx -y skills add aj-geddes/claude-code-bmad-skills --skill bmad-document-project --agent claude-code

How it fires

How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.

  • Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.Auto-invocation is when the right skill fires by itself at the right moment, driven by a FLOW.md router and a hook, instead of you invoking it by name. It is the difference between a skill being installed and a skill actually getting used.Read the full definition →
  • You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
  • Slash command/bmad-document-project

Context preview

The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.

BROWNFIELD planning input. Scans an existing codebase READ-ONLY and writes project-documentation.md — ground truth for stack, structure, key flows, conventions, and integration points — so downstream BMAD planning skills start from reality. Does NOT modify code; produces only

SKILL.md

bmad-document-project.SKILL.md
name: bmad-document-project
description: |
  BROWNFIELD planning input. Scans an existing codebase READ-ONLY and writes
  project-documentation.md — ground truth for stack, structure, key flows,
  conventions, and integration points — so downstream BMAD planning skills
  start from reality. Does NOT modify code; produces only the doc artifact.

  Use when the user says: "document this codebase", "document the project",
  "document my app", "scan the existing code", "brownfield planning",
  "we have existing code, start planning", "map what's already built",
  "document current state", "capture the current architecture",
  "understand the existing system before planning",
  "write project-documentation.md", or before a PRD or architecture doc
  when the user already has code written.

  Three intents: Create (initial scan), Update (re-scan changed areas),
  Validate (check completeness). Plans only — reads code but never writes
  it, runs no tests, no linters, no build tools, no application code.
allowed-tools: Read, Glob, Grep, Write, TodoWrite

BMAD Document Project

**BROWNFIELD entry point.** When a project already has code, planning skills need ground truth — not guesses about the stack or conventions. This skill performs a systematic, READ-ONLY codebase scan and emits `project-documentation.md`, the authoritative current-state snapshot that every downstream BMAD planning skill loads.

**No code is written, modified, or executed.** Allowed tools are Read, Glob, Grep, Write (for the output document only), and TodoWrite (to track scan progress).

---

Output

`bmad-output/project-documentation.md` (or the user-configured output folder — honor it)

Load `bmad-output/project-context.md` if it exists; merge any constraints already recorded there rather than rediscovering them from scratch.

---

Three Intents

Ask which intent applies if ambiguous; never silently regenerate an existing document.

Create — initial scan

Use TodoWrite to track the six scan passes below. Complete every pass before writing the final document.

**Pass 1 — Repository skeleton**

Glob: **/* (depth ≤ 3, exclude node_modules, .git, dist, build, __pycache__, .venv)
Glob: *.md, *.txt, *.rst at root and docs/

Capture: directory tree shape, presence of monorepo markers (`packages/`, `apps/`, `libs/`), top-level config files, documentation roots.

**Pass 2 — Stack and toolchain**

Read whichever of these exist (don't fail on missing files):

| File | What to extract | |------|----------------| | `package.json` / `package-lock.json` | runtime + dev deps, scripts | | `pyproject.toml` / `requirements*.txt` / `Pipfile` | Python stack | | `go.mod` | Go module + dependencies | | `Cargo.toml` | Rust crate | | `pom.xml` / `build.gradle` | JVM stack | | `Gemfile` | Ruby stack | | `composer.json` | PHP stack | | `*.csproj` / `*.sln` | .NET stack | | `Dockerfile` / `docker-compose*.yml` | container strategy | | `.github/workflows/*.yml` / `*.gitlab-ci.yml` / `Jenkinsfile` | CI/CD chain | | `*.tf` / `*.bicep` / `*.yaml` (in infra/) | IaC / cloud provider |

Record: primary language, frameworks, major libraries, runtime version pins, test frameworks (note them — do NOT run them), build tool, package manager.

**Pass 3 — Entry points and key flows**

Grep: "main\|entrypoint\|app\.listen\|createServer\|handler\|router\|routes"
Grep: "export default\|module\.exports\|@app\.route\|@Controller\|@RestController"

Read the top-level entry files surfaced (max 5–8 files; skim, don't exhaustively read).

Capture: how the app starts, primary routing layer, authentication/middleware chain (names only), background workers or queues detected.

**Pass 4 — Module / domain structure**

Read directory names and `index.*` / `__init__.*` files one level down from `src/`, `app/`, `lib/`, or the equivalent.

Glob: src/**/index.{ts,js,py,go,rb}
Glob: app/**/__init__.py

Capture: module names and inferred responsibility, layer boundaries (controllers / services / repositories / models / utils), shared utilities.

**Pass 5 — Conventions and patterns**

Sample 3–5 representative files per layer (prefer recently modified if discernible from file names / path depth):

Grep: "class \|interface \|type \|enum " — naming style
Grep: "async \|await \|Promise\|goroutine\|concurrent" — concurrency pattern
Grep: "import \|require\|from " — module resolution style
Grep: "console\.log\|logger\.\|log\." — logging approach
Grep: "\.env\|process\.env\|os\.environ\|config\." — config/secrets pattern

Capture: naming conventions (casing style for files, classes, functions), error handling style, logging approach, config/secrets management, test file location convention (name only — no execution).

**Pass 6 — Integration points**

Grep: "http[s]\?://\|fetch(\|axios\.\|requests\.\|http\.Get\|RestTemplate"
Grep: "database\|db\.\|pool\.\|prisma\.\|mongoose\.\|sqlx\.\|gorm\."
Grep: "redis\|kafka\|rabbitmq\|sqs\|pubsub\|queue\|event"
Grep: "s3\.\|storage\.\|blob\.\|bucket"

Capture: external HTTP APIs called (domains/service names, not secrets), database type and ORM/driver, message queues or event buses, object storage, third-party services (payment, email, auth providers — names only).

**Write the document**

Fill `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-document-project/templates/project-documentation.template.md` → `bmad-output/project-documentation.md`.

Use the Write tool. Leave sections with a `<!-- not detected -->` comment rather than inventing content. Accuracy over completeness.

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Update — re-scan changed areas

1. Read existing `project-documentation.md`. 2. Ask the user which areas changed (new module? new dependency? refactor?). 3. Re-run only the relevant passes above for those areas. 4. Edit the document surgically with precise rewrites of changed sections. 5. Append a dated update note at the bottom of the document.

Do NOT regenerate the full document from scratch if only part has changed.

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Ships withclaude-code-bmad-skills

This repository is a Claude Code plugin marketplace. It ships one plugin — BMAD Planning & Orchestrator — that harnesses the BMAD Method to plan, document, and orchestrate software work as conflict-free parallel workstreams, then hands implementation off to

Get the whole plugin

Other skills on claude-code-bmad-skills.