CodeTour Walkthrough File Builder
Writes a valid CodeTour .tour file for your repo: persona-targeted steps anchored to verified file paths and line numbers.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's a great idea for onboarding. Creating a CodeTour walkthrough would be helpful, but I'd need to understand your codebase structure first. Which parts are most important for new developers to understand? Is there a particular feature or flow that tends to confuse new people? How many steps do you think the tour should be—something quick, or more comprehensive? I can help you organize the files and explain them, but I'd want to make sure we're covering the right areas. Maybe we could start with a brief overview and then dive into specific components? Let me know what would be most useful.
CODETOUR CREATED: Backend Onboarding (15 steps) FILE: .vscode/extensions/codetour.tour TARGET AUDIENCE: Junior backend engineers TOUR STRUCTURE: STEP 1: Entry point (src/index.ts, lines 1-15) → High-level: This is where your app boots. We wire up the database and start the server here. STEP 2-4: Database setup (prisma/schema.prisma) → Our three core tables: User, Subscription, CreatorProfile → Focus: Many-to-one relationship between Creator and Subscription (lines 47-61) STEP 5-7: Auth middleware (src/middleware/auth.ts) → JWT validation, session refresh, role checking → Common gotcha: expired tokens don't error, they silently fail (line 34) STEP 8-10: API routes (src/api/subscriptions.ts) → POST /subscriptions (create new sub), GET /:id (fetch), DELETE (cleanup) → Pattern: always validate user ownership before mutating (line 52) STEP 11-15: Error handling and logging → Where logs go, how to trace a request through the system → Debug tip: check src/utils/logger.ts for context field ordering ESTIMATED VIEWING TIME: 8 minutes
About this skill
Your onboarding tour points at blank lines, walks files in alphabetical order, or won't load because the JSON is off. This skill reads the real code first, traces the path that answers the reader's question, and writes a CodeTour file that lands on the exact lines that matter.
What it does
- Traces a real flow (request, job, CLI command, bug) from entry point to answer before writing a single step
- Orders steps by tour type: onboarding, PR review by risk, root-cause trail, or architecture seams
- Anchors each step on the line that carries the idea, using selections and regex patterns so anchors survive edits
- Writes step descriptions that explain why the code matters instead of paraphrasing it
- Checks JSON validity, relative paths, 1-based lines, and pinned refs, and reports which anchors it actually re-read
- Splits oversized requests into a chained series of tours instead of one 40-step slog
What you get
A ready-to-commit .tours/<name>.tour file plus a short anchor check listing each file:line and the text it points at.
Best for
Tech leads onboarding new engineers, reviewers who want a guided path through a large PR, and teams documenting incidents or architecture with VS Code CodeTour.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: codetour-walkthrough-builder
description: Builds valid CodeTour .tour files (the VS Code CodeTour extension format) by tracing the real code path, ordering steps for comprehension, and anchoring each step to a file and line. Use when the user says "create a code tour", "make an onboarding tour of this repo", "write a .tour file for this PR", "walk new engineers through our auth flow", "turn this bug's root cause into a tour", "my tour's line numbers keep pointing at the wrong code", or "CodeTour won't load my tour file".
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# CodeTour Walkthrough File Builder
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