design-doc-google-style SKILL.md skillA
design-doc-google-style from amey-thakur/ai-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/design-doc-google-style@git:20260728.fac4544Pins git:20260728.fac4544 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- amey-thakur/ai-skills
- Path
skills/big-tech-processes/design-doc-google-style/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 2
- Latest version
- git:20260728.fac4544, committed Jul 28, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 18, 2026
- Size
- 3,081 bytes
- Repository stars
- 14
- License
- MIT
Write a Google-style design doc that argues a decision through context, goals, and rejected alternatives before code is written. Use when a change is large enough that picking the wrong approach is expensive to undo.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Google-style design doc At Google the design doc is where an engineer reasons in prose before touching code, and where reviewers kill a flawed approach while changing it is still cheap. A doc that lists only the chosen design, skipping the argument for it, is a status update in a decision's clothing: no reader can tell whether the author weighed anything else or simply picked the first idea that compiled. ## Method 1. **Open with context, hold back the solution.** The first section states the problem, who has it, and what exists today. An engineer three teams away should grasp why the work matters before meeting a single class name. If you cannot describe the problem without naming your fix, you have not understood it yet. 2. **Split goals from non-goals in plain lists.** Write what the design must achieve, then the tempting adjacent problems you are deliberately leaving alone. Non-goals are the section reviewers cite most: they stop scope creep and keep each meeting from relitigating the boundary. 3. **Argue the alternatives considered, do not list them.** Give each serious option a subsection: how it works and the specific reason you rejected it. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/design-doc-google-style@sha256:20764fb072d26f23The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260728.fac4544, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_6tlqwkwvd2bmiwne)
4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 2 versions of this file, between Jul 18, 2026 and Jul 28, 2026, about one every 10 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260728.fac4544 latest | 2026-07-28 | fac4544 | 3,081 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260718.7c1285c | 2026-07-18 | 7c1285c | 3,081 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (3081 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
amey-thakur/ai-skills · 14 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-06 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_6tlqwkwvd2bmiwne GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=amey-thakur/ai-skills/design-doc-google-style GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/20764fb072d26f232ba172955e9d42364ad29663174b3828f48dbe78d35ffc10
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.