doc-lifecycle
doc-lifecycle is the routing skill for documentation work. It
answers “which document type should I create?” given the work
being done — RFC for stakeholder-input gathering, Spec for
implementation-ready feature description, ADR for capturing a
decision after the fact, Knowledge for module-specific facts
worth preserving.
Why routing instead of “just create a doc”
The dominant documentation anti-pattern is creating a doc in the wrong genre. A spec written as an RFC is too vague to implement from; an RFC written as a spec is too prescriptive to gather real input; an ADR written as a spec loses the decision moment. Each document type carries different audience and lifecycle expectations, and getting the genre wrong wastes both writer and reader time.
The routing logic is the value: the skill asks two questions about the work, then picks the right document.
The two-question route
- Is the decision made, or still being made?
- Still being made → RFC (gathers stakeholder input)
- Made, awaiting capture → ADR (records the decision)
- Made, becoming work → Spec (implementation-ready)
- Is the scope a feature, an architectural change, or a fact?
- Feature → Spec
- Architectural change with multiple stakeholders → RFC, then ADR when decided
- Fact about a module or domain → Knowledge or per-module
CLAUDE.md(viadoc-subcontext)
The skill walks the user through the two questions and invokes
the corresponding sub-skill (doc-rfc, doc-spec, doc-adr,
doc-subcontext).
The full chain
| Stage | Output | Skill |
|---|---|---|
| Early — gathering input | RFC | doc-rfc |
| Decision made | ADR | doc-adr |
| Feature ready to build | Spec | doc-spec |
| Spec ready, plan to write | Plan | doc-plan |
| Module-specific fact | Sub-context | doc-subcontext |
| Cross-session learning | CLAUDE.md / rule | continuous-learning |
| PRD for the issue tracker | PRD | doc-prd |
When to skip the routing
If you already know the document type, invoke its skill directly
(/octopus:doc-adr for an ADR, etc.). doc-lifecycle is the
entry point for “I have something to document but don’t know which
genre it is”.