Project Docs Template

Agent-ready project documentation template with START/STATE/TODO/DONE, workflows, lightweight tooling, and LLM-friendly project memory.

This repository contains a compact documentation scaffold for projects that are maintained with LLM agents. The template focuses on clear project state, session handoff, task history, decision records, workflows, and small local utilities without turning the project into a heavy operating system.

Use This Template When

Situation	Why it helps
A new project will be maintained by Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or another coding agent	Gives the agent a predictable bootstrap path and current-state file.
An existing repo has scattered notes, stale task files, or no handoff trail	Separates active work, completed work, decisions, patterns, and session state.
Multiple agents or humans need to resume work safely	Keeps instructions, current state, workflows, and tools in distinct files.

This is a documentation and coordination template, not a runtime framework. It is meant to sit inside ordinary software, research, or operations repositories.

What Is Included

• CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md for agent instructions
• START.md and STATE.md for session bootstrap and current state
• TODO.md and DONE.md with optional archival tooling
• DECISIONS.md, PATTERNS.md, CHANGELOG.md, and HEADER-RULES.md
• Optional FULL-profile routers: WORKFLOWS.md, TOOLS.md, GLOSSARY.md
• Local helpers in _tools/, including init-project, doc-lint, todo-archive, and workflows-sync

The actual template files live in template/.

Quick Start

Clone this repository and instantiate a project profile:

git clone https://github.com/ellmos-ai/project-docs-template.git
cd project-docs-template
python template/_tools/init-project --target ../my-project --name MyProject --profile STANDARD

Available profiles:

• MINIMAL: 7 root files plus essential tools
• STANDARD: 12 root files plus essential tools
• FULL: 16 root files plus workflow, tool, GitHub, and glossary scaffolding

You can also copy files manually from template/ if you only need selected pieces.

Profile Comparison

Profile	Best for	Files copied
MINIMAL	Small repos, experiments, short-lived tools	Core agent instructions, start/state, TODO/DONE, essential tools
STANDARD	Serious projects with decisions and recurring maintenance	Minimal set plus changelog, decisions, patterns, header and cut-and-clue rules
FULL	Multi-agent or long-running projects with routers and workflows	Standard set plus architecture, workflow/tool routers, glossary, .github/

Design Principles

• Every file has a distinct job.
• Session handoff is explicit and short.
• Maintenance burden matters more than having every possible document.
• Routers such as WORKFLOWS.md and TOOLS.md point to details elsewhere.
• Completed tasks can be archived automatically instead of bloating TODO.md.

See template/TEMPLATE.md for the full rationale and file-by-file explanation.

Discoverability

Canonical search phrases:

agent-ready project documentation template
LLM project docs template START STATE TODO DONE
Claude Code Codex project documentation scaffold
multi-agent repo handoff documentation template

For LLM and crawler-oriented metadata, see llms.txt.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.

This project is an unpaid open-source donation. Liability is limited to intent and gross negligence under Section 521 of the German Civil Code. Use at your own risk. No warranty, maintenance guarantee, availability guarantee, or fitness-for-purpose guarantee is provided.