Use MathWorks Documentation

Use MathWorks Documentation

Systematic methodology for reading live MathWorks documentation. Provides a repeatable four-pass strategy (local catalog → help → user guide pages → reference pages) that turns documentation lookup into a predictable, efficient operation. Uses MATLAB's webread via MCP to fetch pages, with helper scripts that handle URL discovery, HTML parsing, and content extraction.

When to Use

• You are answering a "How do I..." question related to MathWorks products and workflows
• You guessed a URL and got 404 — use this skill to discover the correct URL from the index
• You need to find which functions exist for a product or workflow — start with the local function catalog
• You need to verify a function's syntax, arguments, or deprecation status from the authoritative source
• You want to check MathWorks best practices for a specific workflow
• Training-data knowledge is uncertain or potentially out of date for a release-specific API
• The user asks what MathWorks recommends for a specific topic
• You want a systematic approach that finds the RIGHT page (not just A page) in minimal tool calls

When NOT to Use

• The local help command is sufficient — prefer help function_name for API syntax; it's faster and always correct for the installed version
• The question is about general MATLAB programming patterns, not product-specific workflows
• You already have the authoritative answer from local help or a successfully fetched page

Fast Paths

Not every task needs the full four-pass strategy. Match the task to the shortest path:

Release notes

Release notes are available as clean markdown at https://www.mathworks.com/help/{product}/release-notes.md. Fetch this URL with webread, then extract the section between ## R20XXx and the next ## R header. No HTML parsing needed. Common product slugs: matlab, simulink, ecoder, rtw, stateflow, fixedpoint, hdlcoder.

Help Center Page Hierarchy

• Product landing page — Lists top-level categories with short descriptions. Use to discover section slugs.
• Intermediate category page — Links to subcategories with one-line descriptions. No leaf content. Drill deeper.