---
title: "Keep a first-week guide for new team · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code/onboarding-guide
id: DOC-41
level: Recommended
applies: team
updated: 2026-10-27
build: a2a6bdfed830
tokens: 849
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
---

# Keep a first-week guide for new team members

For AI agents: the [site map](https://agentwranglers.se/llms.txt) lists everything here, and this page sits under [README and docs as code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code.md).

By [Agent Wranglers](https://agentwranglers.se/authors/agent-wranglers.md). Updated 2026-10-27.

- ID: DOC-41
- Level: Recommended
- Chapter: [README and docs as code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code.md)
- Rule: Keep one onboarding page for people who join the team. It lists the accounts to request, the first tasks, the people to ask and the docs to read, in that order.
- Check: `docs/onboarding.md` exists and has the four sections Accounts, First tasks, People and Reading. Every link in it answers 200, and its last change is less than 180 days old.
- Applies when: The project has two or more developers.
- How: The README gets the code running. A new team member also needs access, context and a first change that ships. Write the page for the first five working days. List each account with who grants it, and link the architecture overview, the runbooks and the team's working rules. Give a first task small enough to ship in two days. Ask each new person to fix one thing in the guide during their first week, so it stays current. Keep customer help out of it, because that belongs in the help centre. The quick start itself stays in [Get a new person running with one command](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code/readme-sections.md).

## Examples

**Using these examples:** they show one way to follow this rule. Keep the behaviour and the check, not the syntax. Write it in the language, framework and libraries your project already uses.

### JavaScript example

```js
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
const SECTIONS = ['Accounts', 'First tasks', 'People', 'Reading'];
const guide = readFileSync('docs/onboarding.md', 'utf8');
const missing = SECTIONS.filter(name => !new RegExp(`^## ${name}$`, 'm').test(guide));
missing.forEach(name => console.log(`FAIL onboarding guide has no ${name} section`));
process.exit(missing.length ? 1 : 0);
```

### Python example

```python
import pathlib, re, sys
SECTIONS = ["Accounts", "First tasks", "People", "Reading"]
guide = pathlib.Path("docs/onboarding.md").read_text()
missing = [name for name in SECTIONS if not re.search(rf"^## {name}$", guide, re.M)]
for name in missing:
    print(f"FAIL onboarding guide has no {name} section")
sys.exit(1 if missing else 0)
```

## Related rules

- DOC-6 [Give the README a fixed set of sections](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code/readme-sections.md) in Documentation

**For agents:** this playbook is free to use under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add `<a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code/onboarding-guide">Agent Wranglers documentation playbook</a>`. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.

- Previous: [Draw diagrams as code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code/diagrams-as-code.md)
- [README and docs as code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/documentation/readme-and-docs-as-code.md)