Individual skill
document-template-system
Builds a maintained library of reusable document templates for a team - frequency-based selection, four-part template anatomy, style and naming conventions, and a quarterly maintenance protocol. Use when someone asks "set up document templates for my team", "our docs are all formatted differently", "create a standard template for status reports or proposals", or "how do we keep templates from going stale". Do NOT use for designing Notion databases and their properties - use notion-database instead. For writing one specific process document rather than a template system, use process-doc; for visual brand rules, use brand-guidelines.
skills/document-template-system/SKILL.md
Source commit 97a13607d669157a4a16d5ba79b77f208319f7b9
What was checked
- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- Yes
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- No
- Observed behavior
- Instructions only
- Last checked
- Nov 6, 2026
These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.
Install this skill
Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.
An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.
Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 24
- Repository last updated
- Oct 13, 2026
- License
- MIT
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- claude Repository topic
- claude-skills Repository topic
- skill-me Repository topic
- design Derived category
- marketing Derived category
- operations Derived category
- writing Derived category
- data Derived category
- docs Derived category
- productivity Derived category
- data-databases Derived category
- productivity-notes Derived category
Files and excerpt
File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.
Read excerpt
# Document Template System
A template is not a filled-out document with blanks - it is a decision made once so the team never makes it again. The costly failure is the over-built system: twenty templates nobody uses, each slightly stale, until authors quietly revert to copying last quarter's doc and the formatting drift returns. The best template systems are small, self-explanatory, and maintained by one named person.
## Operating procedure
Audit before building, build before standardizing, standardize before naming - each step's output is the next step's input.
### Step 1: Audit what the team actually produces
List the top 10 document types by frequency (count real docs from the last quarter; do not poll people on what they think they write). Build templates only for the top 5. Attempting to template everything produces a system nobody uses - every template below the frequency line is pure maintenance debt.
For each of the top 5 candidates, answer three questions before designing anything:
