docgov-cli

DocGov

Your agent wrote 40 markdown files last week. How many of them are lies?

DocGov is the adult in the room for AI-written docs. It decides where files go, notices when two documents contradict each other, and tells you what went stale the moment you change code.

It's a Claude Code plugin and a standalone CLI. Node 20+, zero dependencies, nothing leaves your machine.

What it looks like

You point it at a repo that's been vibe-coded for a few months:

$ docgov review

DocGov review
─────────────
5 documents inventoried · 0 machine contracts · stack: none detected

Finding                        Count
-----------------------------  -----
unclassified                   3
low-confidence classification  1
moves proposed                 1
frontmatter to add             5
suspected duplicates           0
missing documents              2

Plan written to .docgov/fix-plan.md — nothing has changed.
4 of 11 actions need a judgement call.

Read the plan, delete anything you disagree with, then: docgov fix --dry-run

Nothing moved. It wrote you a plan. You read it, delete the parts you disagree with, and run docgov fix — which works on a branch and reverts itself if anything fails to verify.

Install

claude plugin marketplace add ZeeshanSultan/DocGov
claude plugin install docgov

That gets you the hooks, which are the good part: your agent gets handed the rules before it edits governed code, and gets stopped before it writes a doc in the wrong place.

Not using Claude Code? The CLI works on its own, and it's the same binary CI runs:

npx docgov-cli setup

(The package is docgov-cli because npm won't hand out docgov. The command you type is still docgov.)

Usage

Your first five minutes:

docgov setup     # turn it on. infers your project's shape, writes .docgov/config.yaml
docgov review    # look at the docs you already have. writes a plan, changes nothing
docgov fix       # run the plan, on a branch, reverting itself if verification fails

Then, day to day:

docgov check     # did I just break a rule?
docgov stale     # which docs did the code move out from under?
docgov affected  # I changed this — what do I need to update?
docgov health    # how bad is it, out of 100?

Every command takes --json. Full list: docs/reference/commands.md.

What it actually does

Knows what a document is	57 document classes. Each one has a place it belongs, sections it must have, and a size past which it stops being that kind of document. Point it at a file and it'll tell you what you wrote.
Knows which docs outrank which	Your spec beats the tutorial that paraphrases it. A README can't quietly contradict an ADR. When two documents disagree, there's a defined answer for which one is wrong.
Hands your agent the rules	Write INV-LIC-001 A license belongs to exactly one organization. in a spec, map it to the code it governs, and every agent that touches that code gets the rule before it writes a line. Cheapest useful thing in here.
Notices when docs go stale	Code moved and the doc didn't. Spec moved and the code didn't. Your OpenAPI file is ahead of the page describing it. Scored by what changed around a document, not by how old it is.
Tells you what to update	You changed this file — here are the docs that need to change with it, split into required and optional, as a checklist your agent can work through and CI can check.
Packs context for agents	docgov brief billing returns the minimum authoritative context for an area and nothing else. It's the only documentation your agent pays tokens for.
Won't let you leak	Before anything goes public it flags what would leak and writes rewrite briefs. An external doc is a different artifact, not a redacted copy. Nothing publishes automatically.

How it decides things

Two halves, and the split is the whole design:

Software decides what blocks. Is this id a duplicate? Is this file in the right place? Did code change that a spec claims to describe? Same answer in your editor and in CI, and it can always show its working.

A model decides what's subjective. Do these two documents actually contradict each other? Should this be split? Is this prose still true? Reported for review, never enforced.

An LLM never decides whether docgov.id is duplicated. Software never decides whether your prose is clear.

A governance tool that blocks a README typo gets uninstalled, so enforcement ramps: adopting DocGov on a repo that already has docs starts in warn-only, and setup tells you when to turn that off.

Honest limits

• Stale ≠ wrong. DocGov tells you, as a fact, that a document claims to describe code that changed while the document didn't. Whether the prose now contradicts the code is a judgement call, made by an agent, and it's advisory. Claiming otherwise would be the fastest way to lose your trust.
• Quality scores don't fail builds. A subjective judgement that fails a build is one nobody can appeal.
• fix needs git and a clean tree. "Without losing anything" is only a real promise if every change is revertible.

Where everything else is

• docs/reference/commands.md — every command, what it does, what it writes
• docs/architecture.md — how it's built
• SECURITY.md — what the hooks run, and what never leaves your machine
• CONTRIBUTING.md — the one architectural rule
• CHANGELOG.md — what changed
• examples/policy-packs — governance across a whole organization
• Issues — bugs, and especially false positives. A rule that fires when it shouldn't is the bug that decides whether anyone trusts this thing.

npm test runs 63 tests against real temporary git repos. DocGov governs its own repository, so docgov check --all here is a real end-to-end test.

MIT.