Govern documentation lifecycle including docs-as-code workflows, quarterly content audits, page lifecycle states (draft/published/stale/deprecated/archived), stale content detection, contributor onboarding, and scaling governance. Use when managing docs freshness, setting up review cadences, defining content lifecycle states, or onboarding doc contributors. Triggered by: docs lifecycle, stale content, content audit, docs-as-code, deprecation, archived, draft, published, content governance, contributor onboarding, docs workflow, content freshness, review cadence, docs scaling, content retirement.
Define and enforce the lifecycle of documentation pages from creation through archival. As documentation scales, ungoverned content becomes stale, contradictory, and harmful. This skill provides the workflows, states, detection rules, and governance cadence to keep docs healthy over time.
This skill handles content lifecycle and governance processes. Content categorization is handled by governing-taxonomy. Content quality on individual pages is handled by docs-designer.
Every documentation page exists in one of five states:
┌──────────┐
│ DRAFT │
│ (hidden) │
└────┬─────┘
│ publish
▼
┌──────────┐
┌─────│ PUBLISHED │◄──────── refresh ──┐
│ │ (visible) │ │
│ └────┬─────┘ │
│ │ 90 days no update │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌──────────┐ │
│ │ STALE │──── review ──────────┘
│ │ (warned) │
│ └────┬─────┘
│ │ decision: obsolete
│ ▼
│ ┌────────────┐
│ │ DEPRECATED │
│ │ (bannered) │
│ └────┬───────┘
│ │ 30 days
│ ▼
│ ┌──────────┐
└────►│ ARCHIVED │
│ (removed)│
└──────────┘
| State | Visibility | Banner | Search | Sidebar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Hidden from public | None (not visible) | Excluded | Excluded |
| Published | Fully visible | None | Included | Included |
| Stale | Visible with warning | "This page may be outdated. Last reviewed: [date]" | Included, deprioritized | Included |
| Deprecated | Visible with redirect notice | "This page is deprecated. See [replacement]." | Excluded | Excluded |
| Archived | Removed from site | N/A | Excluded | Excluded |
| Transition | Trigger | Who Decides |
|---|---|---|
| Draft → Published | Author marks ready, reviewer approves | Author + Reviewer |
| Published → Stale | 90 days since last update (automated) | Automated |
| Stale → Published | Content reviewed and confirmed current | Reviewer |
| Stale → Deprecated | Content is obsolete, replacement exists | Docs lead |
| Deprecated → Archived | 30 days after deprecation | Automated |
| Any → Draft | Major rewrite needed | Author |
| Archived → Published | Content becomes relevant again | Docs lead |
Add lifecycle metadata to page frontmatter:
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