external-docs

External Docs Research Skills

Use this skill profile when you need authoritative external documentation before implementing or reviewing changes.

Use When

• Looking up external platform behavior, limits, syntax, API contracts, or version-specific guidance
• Verifying configuration for Azure, GitHub, VS Code, Terraform ecosystem tools, SDKs, or service APIs
• Resolving uncertainty where repository-local code is not a complete source of truth

Do Not Use When

• The answer is fully determined by repository-local code and docs
• Runtime/test evidence in this repo already proves behavior conclusively
• You are making speculative changes without a concrete external dependency

Input Contract

Required before research:

• Technology/service name and version (if applicable)
• Task intent (quickstart, reference, limits, migration, how-to)
• Language/runtime context (bash, yaml, terraform, python, csharp, etc.)

Output Contract

Research output should include:

• Source used (Learn/Context7/approved fallback)
• Version/topic scope queried
• Repo-specific recommendation (what to change and where)
• Explicit assumptions or uncertainty notes

Source-of-Truth Policy (Single Authority)

1. Repository first: validate local patterns and current implementation.
2. Microsoft Learn MCP next: use for content on learn.microsoft.com when available.
3. Upstash Context7 for external docs: resolve library ID first, then query exact topic/version.
4. Conflict handling: prefer official versioned docs over memory or unofficial sources.
5. Fallback approval requirement: if no documentation is found in Context7, identify an alternate source of truth and ask the user for explicit approval before using it, or ask the user to provide the alternate source directly.

Documentation Sync

• If implementation work adds, removes, renames, or materially reorganizes tracked files or directories, the resulting change should update the root README.md Folder Structure section in the same change. Do not add gitignored or local-only artifacts to that tree.
• Review the documentation sync matrix in ../../copilot-instructions.md and update any area-specific README or docs pages it calls out for the touched subtree.

Context7 Workflow

1. Resolve library ID with mcp_context7_resolve-library-id.
2. Query docs with mcp_context7_get-library-docs using a specific, version-aware topic.
3. Capture key constraints and map them to repository changes.

Validation Gates (Required)

1. Confirm source authority and version relevance.
2. Confirm recommendation aligns with repository constraints and patterns.
3. Flag conflicts between docs and repository behavior.
4. State what could not be verified and why.

Detailed References

For Context7 target library IDs, query construction rules, and failure playbooks, see references/REFERENCE.md.