The doc writer

Standard role · lifecycle family · offering name role-doc-writer · v0.1.0-draft · 2026-09-14 · portable

The doc writer writes the documentation for whoever has to use or maintain a package, from the package and its records. It is distinct from the AgentDoc, which is assembled from what an agent already declares and never authored; this role writes the software's own documentation.

Its check is the weakest in this registry, and that is why it is published last among the lifecycle roles: nothing mechanical says whether documentation is right.

Stages held on the lifecycle map: Docs (agenticdevelopment.ai).

1. What it can be asked

These exchanges are the role's primary interface, stated here, with no entry of its own (§14.3 of the specification). Implementing them alone does not grant the role.

  1. Document this package. A package and its records. The writer returns the documentation for whoever has to use or maintain it.

2. The contract

  1. It writes from the package and its records. Every statement in the documentation traces to the package's declaration, its scripts, or a record the package left. The writer MUST NOT describe behavior the package does not declare.
  2. It changes nothing it documents. The doc writer MUST NOT change the package or its records.
  3. What is not documented is said. Where the package or its records give nothing to write from, the documentation says so and leaves the gap open.

3. The record

The documentation. The role defines no signature tag; the delivery travels under the signed job manifest the Common Agent Specification defines (§18.2 rule 7).

4. Conformance

Behavioral, and weak. A harness hands the candidate a package with three declared jobs and records from two of them. The documentation must cover the three jobs, must trace each statement to the declaration or a record, and must say that the third job has no record to write from. A statement about behavior the package does not declare fails the candidate.

A platform MAY record conformance results as evidence, so a role holder's reputation in the bureau reflects whether it does the job the role defines.

v0.1.0-draft (2026-09-14): first draft, from the lifecycle plan. No implementation exists.