extract.md 4.7 KB

Extract Operation

Purpose: Extract context from docs, code, or URLs into organized context files

Last Updated: 2026-01-06


When to Use

  • Extracting from documentation (React docs, API docs, etc.)
  • Extracting from codebase (patterns, conventions)
  • Extracting from URLs (blog posts, guides)
  • Creating initial context for new topics

7-Stage Workflow

Stage 1: Read Source

/context extract from https://react.dev/hooks
  ↓
Agent: "Reading source (8,500 lines)...
Analyzing content for extractable items..."

Action: Read and analyze source material


Stage 2: Analyze & Categorize

Action: Extract and categorize content by function

Categorization:

  • Design decisions → concepts/
  • Working code → examples/
  • Step-by-step workflows → guides/
  • Reference data (commands, paths) → lookup/
  • Errors/gotchas → errors/

Output: List of extractable items with previews


Stage 3: Select Category (APPROVAL REQUIRED)

Action: User chooses target category and items

Format:

Found 12 extractable items from {source}:

Concepts (8):
  ✓ [A] useState - State management hook
  ✓ [B] useEffect - Side effects hook
  ... (6 more)

Errors (4):
  ✓ [I] Hooks called conditionally
  ✓ [J] Hooks in loops
  ... (2 more)

Which category?
  [1] development/
  [2] core/
  [3] Create new category: ___

Select items (A B I or 'all') + category (1/2/3):

Validation: MUST wait for user input before proceeding


Stage 4: Preview (APPROVAL REQUIRED)

Action: Show what will be created, check for conflicts

Format:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Extraction Plan: development/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CREATE (new files):
  concepts/use-state.md (45 lines)
  concepts/use-effect.md (52 lines)
  concepts/use-context.md (38 lines)
  ... (6 more)
  guides/custom-hooks.md (87 lines)
  guides/debugging-hooks.md (65 lines)

ADD TO (existing files):
  errors/react-hooks-errors.md (98 → 124 lines)
    + 4 new error entries

⚠️  CONFLICT (file already exists):
  concepts/use-memo.md already exists (42 lines)
    Options:
      [A] Skip — keep existing file
      [B] Overwrite — replace with extracted version
      [C] Merge — add new content to existing file (42 → 58 lines)
    Choose [A/B/C]: _

NAVIGATION UPDATE:
  development/navigation.md
    + 9 new entries in Concepts table
    + 2 new entries in Guides table
    + 1 updated entry in Errors table

Total: 12 files, ~650 lines

Preview content? (type filename, 'all' for batch, or 'skip')
Approve? [y/n/edit]: _

If user types 'all': Show first 10 lines of each file in sequence If user types filename: Show full content of that file If user types 'skip': Proceed to approval

Validation: MUST get approval before proceeding


Stage 5: Create

Action: Create files in function folders

Process:

  1. Apply MVI format (1-3 sentences, 3-5 key points, minimal example)
  2. Create files in correct function folders
  3. Ensure all files <200 lines
  4. Add cross-references

Enforcement: @critical_rules.mvi_strict + @critical_rules.function_structure


Stage 6: Update Navigation (preview included in Stage 4)

Action: Update navigation.md and add cross-references

Process:

  1. Update category navigation.md with new files (as previewed in Stage 4)
  2. Add priority levels (critical/high/medium/low)
  3. Add cross-references between related files
  4. Update "Last Updated" dates

Stage 7: Report

Action: Show comprehensive results

Format:

✅ Extracted X items into {category}
📄 Created Y files
📊 Updated {category}/README.md

Files created:
  - {category}/concepts/ (N files)
  - {category}/examples/ (N files)
  - {category}/errors/ (N files)

Examples

Extract from URL

/context extract from https://react.dev/hooks

Extract from Local Docs

/context extract from docs/api.md
/context extract from docs/architecture/

Extract from Code

/context extract from src/utils/

Success Criteria

  • All files <200 lines?
  • MVI format applied (1-3 sentences, 3-5 points, example, reference)?
  • Files in correct function folders?
  • README.md updated?
  • Cross-references added?
  • User approved before creation?

Related

  • standards/mvi.md - What to extract
  • guides/compact.md - How to minimize
  • guides/workflows.md - Interactive examples