/ln-53-documentation-auditor

name: ln-53-documentation-auditor
description: "Audits documentation and comments for trust, coverage, consistency and freshness; read-only."

Documentation Auditor

**Goal:** Audit documentation as a read-only evidence system: can a new contributor, operator, user, or coding agent find the right source, trust its claims, and act without hidden context? Review both standalone documents and code comments where they carry public or operational knowledge.

**Execution contract:** The checklist defines completion. Track each item internally as `PENDING`, `PROVEN` with evidence, `CLEARED` with evidence its condition is absent, or `UNPROVEN` with a gap; reading, delegation, or tool failure is not proof. Reconcile after each section. Before returning, resolve all `PENDING`, count only `PROVEN` and `CLEARED`, and apply verdict and approval rules to every gap. Preserve intent, scope, and existing authorization. Continue authorized work; ask only for consequential unresolved choices or required external approval. Scale depth to material risk without skipping checks. Preserve dependency and safety order; otherwise choose an appropriate verification method. Accept equivalent user or repository evidence; no other skill, named artifact, or complete lifecycle is required. Preserve source requirement and decision IDs. Bind reused evidence to relevant source versions, dirty changes, configuration, and environment; invalidate only affected claims. On continuation, reconcile task, authorization, current state, and unresolved evidence. For long work, return a compact continuation record or update an already authorized artifact; read-only skills do not persist it. Distinguish artifact readiness, verified behavior, and external-action authority. Prepare authorized work before required approval. If blocked by an instruction, cite its exact source and unresolved boundary; do not invent approval gates from caution.

Tool Routing

| Need | Preferred tool | Use it when | Fallback | |---|---|---|---| | Document inventory and hierarchy | Native file listing with narrow patterns | Establishing documentation surfaces, generated areas, and navigation structure | Repository tree and known entry documents | | Links, repeated terms, claims, and contradictions | Native text search, then focused reads | Finding references, stale names, duplicated guidance, paths, commands, and configuration keys | Manual cross-document comparison | | Code and configuration truth | Native code search, manifests, schemas, and direct file reads | A document claims that a path, option, endpoint, behavior, or default exists | Execute a safe inspection command when text is insufficient | | Freshness and ownership | Git log, blame, and diff | Determining when a claim changed, whether a document tracks active code, or who owns a convention | Current code and explicit ownership files | | Commands and examples | Shell in non-mutating or dry-run mode | Verifying help text, command existence, config parsing, generated output, or example syntax | Inspect command registration and tests; mark runtime proof unavailable | | External facts | Official documentation, specifications, and release notes | A current external API, version, standard, or platform behavior affects correctness | Primary-source web research; otherwise mark `UNVERIFIED` |

Do not run commands that publish, migrate, deploy, write production state, or rewrite documentation. Generated caches are acceptable only when permitted and disclosed.

Evidence Rules

| Claim type | Required evidence | |---|---| | Repository path, symbol, command, configuration, endpoint, or default | Current repository or safe command output | | External API, version, standard, or compatibility statement | Official source matching the relevant version | | Count or coverage statement | Reproducible query with scope and exclusions | | Historical rationale | Current decision record or history that still matches implementation | | Recommendation | A demonstrated reader failure, contradiction, maintenance cost, or operational risk |

Absence of documentation is a finding only when a real audience needs the missing knowledge. Judge stale and missing guidance by the reader failure or harm they cause.

Checklist

1. Establish Scope and Audiences

• [ ] Identify documentation entrypoints, public docs, maintainer docs, operational runbooks, generated references, examples, and code-comment surfaces in scope.
• [ ] Identify intended audiences and their concrete tasks: understand, install, configure, operate, troubleshoot, extend, or verify the system.
• [ ] Read applicable repository instructions and detect documentation ownership, generation commands, language policy, and source-of-truth conventions.
• [ ] Separate authored documents from generated, vendored, archived, temporary, and example content before scoring defects.
• [ ] Classify each target as entrypoint/index, reference, how-to, explanation, decision record, generated output, or example; prioritize canonical and claim-dense documents before navigation-only files.
• [ ] Define which code, configuration, schemas, tests, and external contracts can verify documentation claims.
• [ ] Keep the audit read-only and record any unavailable source, command, or environment as a limitation.

2. Check Structure and Discoverability

• [ ] Verify that the root entry document explains purpose, supported use, prerequisites, installation path, and navigation appropriate to its audience.
• [ ] Check hierarchy, headings, table of contents, local navigation, cross-links, anchors, and predictable placement of related material.
• [ ] Verify local paths and anchors, including case sensitivity, and inspect external redirects for a wrong or unavailable destination; a working intentional redirect is not a defect.
• [ ] Identify orphan documents, duplicate entrypoints, circular navigation, deep chains, and important content reachable only by repository search.
• [ ] Ch