antigravity-ipa-workflow/skills/ipa-init/SKILL.md

name: ipa-init description: Initialize IPA documentation by reverse-engineering an existing codebase that has no docs. Use when applying the IPA workflow to a running project, extracting API routes and DB schema from code, or generating a documentation baseline for legacy systems. Trigger phrases: "extract docs from code", "initialize ipa for existing project", "reverse engineer ipa docs".

Overview

Generates IPA-standard documentation from an existing codebase with no docs. Scans code for API routes, DB schema, and UI screens, then infers SRD from business logic. Runs ipa-validate automatically after generation.

When to Use

• Existing project has no IPA docs
• Existing project has partial docs that need enhancement
• Separate frontend/backend repos need combined docs
• Microservices architecture needs unified documentation baseline

Don't Use When

• Starting a brand new project from scratch (use lean + ipa-spec)
• Implementation tasks are done and only sync is needed (use ipa-docs-sync)

Supported Structures

# Monorepo
ipa-init
ipa-init ./my-project

# Separate FE/BE repos
ipa-init ./frontend ./backend

# Microservices
ipa-init ./user-service ./order-service ./payment-service

Workflow

Step 1: Detect Tech Stack

Scan for:

• package.json → Node.js ecosystem
• requirements.txt / pyproject.toml → Python
• go.mod → Go
• Cargo.toml → Rust

Auto-detect framework, ORM, and UI library. Save to docs/tech-stack.md if not exists.

Step 2: Extract API Routes → API_SPEC.md

Scan for route definitions across frameworks (Express, NestJS, FastAPI, etc.).

Step 3: Extract DB Schema → DB_DESIGN.md

Scan for schema definitions (Drizzle, Prisma, raw SQL, etc.).

Step 4: Extract UI Screens → UI_SPEC.md

Scan for page components (Next.js app/page.tsx, React routes, etc.).

Step 5: Infer SRD.md

From collected data, infer:

• Entities (E-xx): From DB tables
• Features (FR-xx): From API endpoints grouped by resource
• Screens (S-xx): From UI pages

Step 6: Auto-Validate

Run ipa-validate logic automatically.

After Generation

ipa-init complete
    ↓
Auto-validation ran
    ↓
Review generated docs and validation report
    ↓
Enhance manually:
- Add business context to SRD
- Add CJX to UI_SPEC
- Fix any validation warnings
    ↓
Ready for:
- lean [new feature] to extend
- plan to create tasks

Usage

# Initialize IPA docs
ipa-init

# Force regenerate (overwrite existing)
ipa-init --force

Important Notes

1. Review generated docs — auto-inference is not perfect
2. Add business context — code doesn't capture "why"
3. Enhance CJX manually — user journeys need human input
4. SRD business rules need domain knowledge

Does not implement code — only generates documentation.