home / skills / ehtbanton / claudeskillsrepo / readme-template-generator

readme-template-generator skill

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This skill automatically generates a complete README.md tailored to the project type with badges, sections, and usage guidance.

npx playbooks add skill ehtbanton/claudeskillsrepo --skill readme-template-generator

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Files (2)

SKILL.md

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---
name: readme-template-generator
description: Generate comprehensive README.md templates for open source projects. Triggers on "create readme", "generate readme template", "project readme", "documentation readme".
---

# README Template Generator

Generate comprehensive README.md files for projects.

## Output Requirements

**File Output:** `README.md`
**Format:** GitHub-flavored Markdown
**Standards:** Best practices for open source documentation

## When Invoked

Immediately generate a complete README.md for the project type.

## Example Invocations

**Prompt:** "Create README for npm package"
**Output:** Complete `README.md` with badges, installation, usage, API docs.

Overview

This skill generates comprehensive project documentation file templates for open source projects. It produces a ready-to-add markdown file that follows best practices for clarity, discoverability, and contribution. Use it to quickly scaffold consistent docs for libraries, tools, and services.

How this skill works

Provide the project type and a short description and the skill outputs a complete markdown documentation file with badges, installation instructions, usage examples, API reference scaffolding, contribution guidelines, and license info. The generator follows common open-source conventions and adapts sections for npm packages, CLI tools, libraries, and apps. Outputs are formatted for GitHub-flavored Markdown and ready to copy into your project.

When to use it

Starting a new open-source project and you need a standard docs template
Publishing a package and you want installation, usage, and API sections prefilled
Onboarding contributors with clear contribution, testing, and code-of-conduct sections
Standardizing documentation across multiple projects or a mono-repo
Refreshing stale or minimal documentation to match best practices

Best practices

Include a short project summary and one-line value proposition at the top
Add badges for build status, license, coverage, and package registry where applicable
Provide clear installation steps and quick-start examples that run end-to-end
Document primary API endpoints, command examples, or exported functions with minimal examples
Add contribution guidelines, testing instructions, and an explicit license section

Example use cases

Create documentation file for an npm package with installation, API, and publishing notes
Generate docs for a CLI tool with usage examples, flags, and exit codes
Scaffold docs for a library with module usage, typed examples, and changelog instructions
Produce onboarding docs for a service with setup, environment variables, and run commands
Standardize documentation templates across an organization’s TypeScript projects

FAQ

What formats are produced?

Generates GitHub-flavored Markdown optimized for project root documentation files.

Can it add badges and shields?

Yes — it includes placeholders for CI, coverage, license, and package-registry badges.

Does it include contribution and license sections?

Yes — the template includes contribution guidelines, testing steps, and a license section to help legal clarity.