What do I need to use Developer Onboarding Document?

Service name; Team; Tech stack; Key external dependencies; Deployment target; Local dev setup; Testing approach; Deployment process; On-call setup; Contacts.

Is Developer Onboarding Document free to use?

Yes — run it free in the browser playground (no API key needed for the sponsored trial, or bring any provider key), or install it into Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and more via npx pm-claude-skills. MIT-licensed and open source.

Developer Onboarding Document

Q: How do I know the Developer Onboarding Document output is good?

The skill verifies itself against its own quality checks: Local setup instructions work on a fresh machine — tested recently; Environment variables table is complete and accurate; "Things that might surprise you" captures the actual surprises (ask a recent joiner); On-call section has real links, not placeholders.

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-06-08 🔷 SkillSpec L3 pm-engineering

Write a developer onboarding document for a service, codebase, or team. Use when asked to write a developer guide, service README, onboarding doc for a new engineer, codebase orientation, or getting-started guide for a technical team. Produces a structured doc covering service overview, architecture, local setup, key patterns, testing, deployment, and who to ask for what.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft View SKILL.md ↗

What to give it

▸Service name — and what it does

▸Team — responsible for it

▸Tech stack — language(s), framework(s), database(s), message queues, etc.

▸Key external dependencies — upstream services, third-party APIs

▸Deployment target — Kubernetes, ECS, Lambda, bare metal, etc.

▸Local dev setup — how to run locally (Docker Compose, local DB, etc.)

▸Testing approach — unit, integration, E2E; test commands

▸Deployment process — summary of how code gets to production

▸On-call setup — who's on-call, how alerts work

▸Contacts — tech lead, platform team, related service owners

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓Local setup instructions work on a fresh machine — tested recently

✓Environment variables table is complete and accurate

✓"Things that might surprise you" captures the actual surprises (ask a recent joiner)

✓On-call section has real links, not placeholders

✓Contacts are current — team members with real Slack handles

✓Troubleshooting covers the top 3 actual questions new joiners ask

⚠️ What it refuses to do

Do not document the ideal setup — document the actual setup; real oddities and gotchas are what new engineers need most

Do not leave placeholder contacts like "ask your manager" — name specific people for each domain or the doc becomes useless when the new joiner has an urgent question

Do not write the onboarding doc without reviewing it with a recent joiner — the author is blind to what they take for granted

Do not include every piece of architectural detail — an onboarding doc that covers everything teaches nothing; link to deeper docs instead

Do not skip the "things that might surprise you" section — undocumented non-obvious patterns are the number one cause of wasted engineering time in the first week

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp

Start with

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🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

<div data-pm-skill="developer-onboarding-doc"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>

💬 Discussion

Developer Onboarding Document is one of 1098 open-source professional AI agent skills — all SkillSpec L3. Try them all in the browser · ⭐ Star on GitHub · Browse the full catalog