Do not guess where authoritative docs can answer the question. The most common right move is to web-search for the current official docs, open the relevant pages, and read them before coding. For APIs, versions, provider behavior, config, limits, lifecycle hooks, or security-sensitive flows, ground the answer in what the docs actually say.
Read The Damn Docs is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the security-misc sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.
When to invoke it: Use when implementing, integrating, upgrading, debugging, or answering anything involving third-party APIs, libraries, frameworks, CLIs, cloud services, model/provider SDKs, fast-moving product behavior, user requests for latest/current/official behavior, unfamiliar repo docs/specs, errors that may indicate API drift, or high-stakes auth, security, billing, data, migration, deployment, compliance, or privacy behavior. Forces Codex to web-search for current official docs and read primary docs before assuming from memory.
The Read The Damn Docs Claude Code skill is built for security engineers, penetration testers, DevSecOps practitioners, and development teams hardening codebases and infrastructure. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 174,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/read-the-damn-docs/SKILL.md \ -o ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs/SKILL.md
Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.
Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\read-the-damn-docs\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.
Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →
The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.
For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.
SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/read-the-damn-docs/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Read The Damn Docs is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Security category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:
@misc{read-the-damn-docs-2026,
author = {BuilderIO},
title = {Read The Damn Docs [Claude Code skill]},
year = {2026},
publisher = {ClaudSkills},
url = {https://claudskills.com/skills/read-the-damn-docs/}
}Grade A · scanned 2026-08-02 — free static scan against the OWASP Agentic Skills Top 10.
No risk patterns were found in any of the ten OWASP-aligned categories. How grading works ›
Browse all Security skills in the ClaudSkills registry, or explore these other picks from the same category:
Part of Acreator Store — Adam Lankamer's AI tools: PerfectStudio · Ucaption · UTagger · AutoXPoster · TestYourSkills · AutomationFlows · Au Naturel · Telegram @acreatorstore
SKILL.md files, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic.