docs-product-alignment

$npx mdskill add microsoft/vscode-docs/docs-product-alignment

Audit VS Code Copilot documentation against current product capabilities and produce targeted, style-compliant edits. Follow the [docs-writing style guide](../../instructions/docs-writing.instructions.md) for all writing rules.

SKILL.md

.github/skills/docs-product-alignmentView on GitHub ↗
---
name: docs-product-alignment
description: 'Audit and update docs/copilot/ documentation to accurately reflect current VS Code AI capabilities. Use when: competitive analysis reveals gaps, product launches new features, docs use outdated framing, or keyword coverage needs strengthening for discoverability by users and AI agents. Produces a gap analysis plus targeted edits across affected files.'
---

# Documentation Product Alignment

Audit VS Code Copilot documentation against current product capabilities and produce targeted, style-compliant edits. Follow the [docs-writing style guide](../../instructions/docs-writing.instructions.md) for all writing rules.

## Guardrails

- **Factual only.** Every claim must map to something the product does today. No superlatives, no competitive comparisons, no invented terminology.
- **Content framing.** Establish each page's primary persona, reader intent, and article purpose by following the [content-framing guidance](../../instructions/docs-writing.instructions.md#content-framing). Ask the writer before editing when the framing is ambiguous and would change the audit or recommendations.
- **Two consumers.** The primary persona reads the prose; AI agents and search crawlers index Keywords, MetaDescriptions, and opening paragraphs. Both matter.
- **Minimal edits.** Change only what is inaccurate, outdated, or missing. One precise sentence beats a rewritten section.
- **Verifiable.** If you cannot point to a UI element, setting, or documented behavior, do not write it.

## Workflow

1. **Gather context and frame each page.** Read the latest [release notes](/release-notes/), check [github.com/features/copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot), and review any competitive claims or feature matrices the user provides. For each page, record its primary persona, reader intent, and article purpose before proposing edits.
2. **Audit high-traffic pages.** Read each page and compare against current product truth. Focus on MetaDescriptions, Keywords, opening paragraphs, and terminology.
3. **Gap analysis.** List what is inaccurate, outdated, or missing. Map each gap to a file and location. Include the page framing in the analysis, and prioritize by page traffic and impact on the primary persona's intent.
4. **Edit.** Apply targeted changes that support the recorded framing. Vary phrasing across pages to avoid repetition.
5. **Verify.** Search changed files for banned words, em-dashes, and MetaDescription length violations. Confirm that each changed page still serves its recorded primary persona and reader intent.

**High-traffic pages to always check:**
- [docs/copilot/overview.md](/docs/copilot/overview.md), [docs/copilot/concepts/overview.md](/docs/agents/concepts/overview.md), [docs/agents/reference/ai-features-cheat-sheet.md](/docs/agents/reference/ai-features-cheat-sheet.md)
- [docs/copilot/getting-started.md](/docs/copilot/getting-started.md), [docs/agents/overview.md](/docs/agents/overview.md)
- [docs/agents/reference/workspace-context.md](/docs/agents/reference/workspace-context.md), [docs/agents/agent-troubleshooting/faq.md](/docs/agents/agent-troubleshooting/faq.md)

## Terminology

Use these terms consistently. The "Avoid" column lists terms that creep in but should not.

| Concept | Use | Avoid |
|---------|-----|-------|
| Autonomous coding sessions | agents | agent mode, agentic workflows |
| Running without user interaction | background agents | background agent mode |
| Code suggestions as you type | inline suggestions | code completions, autocomplete |
| Predicted next edit location | next edit suggestions (NES) | predictive edits |
| Understanding code across files | workspace context, cross-file reasoning | deep semantic understanding (overuse) |
| GitHub's search for code context | GitHub's code search | remote search |
| VS Code's type/symbol analysis | language intelligence (IntelliSense, LSP) | code intelligence |
| Multiple AI model options | multiple AI models | leading AI models |
| Plan then implement workflow | Plan agent, implementation agent | planning mode |

## Capability areas

When auditing, ensure docs accurately cover these areas:

- **Agents**: plan, implement, verify, parallel sessions, local/background/cloud, third-party support
- **Context**: semantic search, language intelligence (LSP), GitHub code search, cross-repo awareness
- **Multi-file editing**: coordinated changes, architecture-level refactoring, framework migrations
- **Enterprise**: organization policies, model access controls, content exclusions, trust boundaries
- **SDLC workflow**: Plan agent, implementation agent, Copilot code review, background/cloud handoff
- **Scale**: large codebases, monorepos, multi-root workspaces, remote indexing

More from microsoft/vscode-docs

SkillDescription
blog-writerPlan, write, and review VS Code blog posts. ALWAYS use this skill when the user asks to "write a blog post", "draft a blog", "add a blog post for", "review this blog post", or provides a feature/issue/PR to announce on the VS Code blog. For new posts, it proposes an outline and asks clarifying questions first, and does not edit any files until you approve the plan.
content-redirect'Create and manage redirects in VS Code documentation when pages are moved, renamed, or deleted. Use when moving docs pages, renaming files, restructuring content, or when the user asks about redirects.'
daily-docs-auditAudit recently merged microsoft/vscode pull requests for documentation impact, stage deduplicated issue proposals, and create confirmed issues in microsoft/vscode-docs. ALWAYS use this skill when asked to run or configure a daily docs audit, identify documentation work from merged VS Code PRs, review pending docs issue proposals, or create docs issues for product updates.
doc-writerPlan and write VS Code documentation for a new or updated feature. ALWAYS use this skill when the user asks to "document", "add docs for", "write docs for", or "update the docs for" a feature, or provides a GitHub issue/PR link to document — even if the change seems small. Proposes a documentation plan and asks clarifying questions first — it does not edit any files until you approve the plan.
frontmatter-descriptionCheck and optimize MetaDescription frontmatter fields in VS Code documentation. Use when auditing, adding, or improving page descriptions for SEO and discoverability. Apply this when making content changes to markdown articles.
pr-reviewVerify the technical accuracy of a vscode-docs pull request against the VS Code source code in microsoft/vscode and microsoft/vscode-copilot-chat. Use when reviewing a docs PR for factual correctness — setting names, command IDs, default values, API shapes, keybindings, versioned availability, and described behavior.
release-note-writerGuidelines for writing and reviewing Insiders and Stable release notes for Visual Studio Code. This also includes instructions for updating release notes for recovery releases.
write-my-release-notesGenerate VS Code release notes for the features you worked on in a milestone. ALWAYS use this skill when the user asks to "write release notes for my features", "document my milestone features", or "generate release notes from my issues". It gathers the milestone features you own from GitHub, analyzes each feature and its related issues, and writes user-focused feature sections into the milestone release notes file.