Edit Chapter

VerifiedSafe

Guided workflow for safely editing a guide chapter, ensuring structural changes propagate to all dependent files.

Sby Skills Guide Bot
DocumentationIntermediate
007/23/2026
Claude Code
#guide-editing#chapter-workflow#structural-changes#cross-referencing#documentation-maintenance

Recommended for

Our review

This workflow guides the editing of guide chapters, ensuring structural changes propagate to all dependent files.

Strengths

  • Systematically checks impact of title, template, and canonical term changes.
  • Automates cross-references updates like README and 'Next:' links.
  • Enforces consistent style (prescriptive voice, required sections, heading hierarchy).
  • Includes final verification with the cross-reference-check skill.

Limitations

  • Does not handle non-structural edits (minor fixes, rewordings).
  • Relies on presence of '11-failure-modes.md' chapter for footer handling.
  • Requires manual execution of cross-reference-check after changes.
When to use it

Use this workflow before making any substantive edit to a file in the guide/ directory, especially when changing a title, template reference, or canonical term.

When not to use it

Do not use it for minor corrections (typos, style tweaks) that do not affect the guide's structure.

Security analysis

Safe
Quality score95/100

The skill outlines a workflow for editing guide chapters, ensuring consistency across files. It only instructs reading, searching, and updating markdown files, with no destructive or exfiltration actions. No risk.

No concerns found

Examples

Change chapter title
I need to change the title of Chapter 3 from 'Old Title' to 'New Title'. Please follow the edit-chapter workflow.
Update template reference
In chapter 5, I'm replacing the template path 'templates/old.md' with 'templates/new.md'. Run the edit-chapter workflow to ensure all dependencies are updated.
Modify canonical term
I'm changing the canonical term 'five-tier context hierarchy' to 'four-tier context hierarchy' across the guide. Use edit-chapter to update all occurrences.

name: edit-chapter description: Invoke this skill before making substantive edits to any file in guide/ — changing content, titles, template references, or canonical terms. Follow this workflow proactively when editing chapters, not only when the user explicitly requests it. Ensures structural changes propagate to all dependent files.

Edit Chapter

Guided workflow for safely editing a guide chapter. Ensures structural changes propagate to all dependent files.

Before Editing

  1. Read the entire chapter file
  2. Note the current H1 title (line 1)
  3. Note any template paths referenced (lines mentioning templates/)
  4. Note any canonical terms used ("five-tier context hierarchy", "document cascade")

During Editing

  • Maintain prescriptive voice — no hedging phrases (see .claude/rules/guide-chapter.md)
  • Preserve required sections: Principles, What the Human Should Do, What the Agent Should Do
  • Use RecipeVault for examples (not "Beacon")
  • Keep heading hierarchy: ## for major sections, ### for subsections
  • Use fenced code blocks with language identifiers

After Editing

Check each condition and take action if true:

If the H1 title changed:

  1. Update README.md chapter listing (lines 45-93)
  2. Update CLAUDE.md if the chapter is referenced there
  3. Update the "Next:" link in the prior chapter's footer

If template references changed:

  1. Verify each referenced template path exists in templates/
  2. If a path was removed or renamed, grep for the old path across the repo

If a canonical term changed:

  1. Search all .md files for the old term
  2. Update every occurrence to match the new term

Always (every edit):

  1. Verify the chapter ends with a Next: footer linking to the correct successor chapter, unless the file is 11-failure-modes.md
  2. The footer must follow this format:
    ---
    
    Next: [Chapter NN -- Title](NN-slug.md)
    

If any structural change was made (title, file references, canonical terms):

  1. Run the cross-reference-check skill to verify consistency
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