codebase-onboarding

Topics in the source

• Codebase Onboarding
• When to Use
• How It Works
• Phase 1: Reconnaissance
• Phase 2: Architecture Mapping
• Phase 3: Convention Detection
• Phase 4: Generate Onboarding Artifacts
• Output 1: Onboarding Guide

Systematically analyze an unfamiliar codebase and produce a structured onboarding guide. Designed for developers joining a new project or setting up Claude Code in an existing repo for the first time. First time opening a project with Claude Code Joining a new team or repository User asks "help me understand this codebase" User asks to generate a CLAUDE.md for a project User says "onboard me" or "walk me through this repo" Gather raw signals about the project without reading every file. Run these checks in parallel: From the reconnaissance data, identify: Tech Stack Language(s) and version constraints Framework(s) and major libraries Database(s) and ORMs Build tools and bundlers CI/CD platform Architecture Pattern Monolith, monorepo, microservices, or serverless Frontend/backend split or full-stack API style: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, tRPC Key Directories Map the top-level directories to their purpose: Data Flow Trace one request from entry to response: Where does a request enter? (router, handler, controller) How is it validated? (middleware, schemas, guards) Where is business logic? (services, models, use cases) How does it reach the database? (ORM, raw queries, repositories) Identify

This is an excerpt. Refer to the complete source and its current requirements.