Docs Feedback Triage

Use this skill to turn developer documentation feedback into valid, actionable, prioritized work. It helps agents avoid treating every comment as equal while preserving user evidence.

This skill is derived from Docs for Developers: An Engineer's Field Guide to Technical Writing, especially Chapter 8, "Gathering and integrating feedback." It is expanded with paraphrased guidance from Christopher Gales and the Splunk Documentation Team's The Product Is Docs: Writing Technical Documentation in a Product Development Group, especially Chapter 5, "Customer Feedback and Community," Chapter 18, "Working with Customer Support," and Chapter 20, "Working with the Field." Do not copy book prose into user outputs. Source: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-7217-6

Quick Start

1. Load guidelines.md to choose the smallest useful reference set.
2. Identify feedback source, affected doc, user impact, response need, and whether the issue is docs-owned.
3. Test validity, actionability, and importance before recommending work.
4. Use workflows/triage-doc-feedback.md for a full triage pass.
5. Close the loop with users or source teams when the feedback changes product, support, or docs work.

Default Output

When triaging feedback, return:

1. Feedback summary - source, affected doc, user type, and reported problem.
2. Classification - valid/invalid/needs research, docs/product/support issue, duplicate status.
3. Actionability - reproducible, scoped, and fixable information.
4. Priority - severity and rationale.
5. Recommended action - doc fix, routing, follow-up, or no action.
6. Follow-up - user response, owner, and evidence to collect.

Contents

| Need | Start Here | |------|------------| | Understand feedback channels | references/core/knowledge.md | | Apply triage rules | references/core/knowledge.md | | See triage examples | references/core/knowledge.md | | Triage feedback | workflows/triage-doc-feedback.md | | Route by task | guidelines.md |

Core Posture

• Feedback is evidence, not a direct order.
• Distinguish docs problems from product, support, pricing, or policy problems.
• Prioritize by user impact and fixability.
• Treat public/community feedback as both support signal and trust-building opportunity.
• Follow up when users took time to report a real issue.