Generate Comprehensive Code Style Guides

This skill provides expertise in creating comprehensive code style guides that establish unified coding standards across development teams, balancing readability, maintainability, and team productivity while staying practical to implement and enforce. Core principles include consistency over personal preference (a consistent codebase is easier to read, maintain, and onboard new developers into), readability first (code is read far more than it's written, so every style decision should aid clarity), practical enforcement (recommending linters, formatters, and automation to reduce manual review burden), and language specificity (adapting recommendations to each language's idioms and community standards rather than applying generic rules).

Core style guide components cover naming conventions - variables and functions (descriptive camelCase, avoiding unclear abbreviations), and classes/types (PascalCase for classes, SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE for constants) - demonstrated with good-versus-avoid examples across JavaScript and Python. Code organization and structure covers file organization with a fixed ordering convention (imports first - external libraries then internal modules - followed by type definitions, constants, and the main class implementation with public methods before private ones), illustrated in TypeScript. Formatting and whitespace covers consistent indentation (e.g. 4 spaces in Java) and line length/wrapping conventions (e.g. wrapping Python function signatures at 88 characters with clear argument-per-line formatting for readability).

Documentation standards specify function documentation conventions per language - for example Rust's triple-slash doc comments with an Arguments section, a runnable doctest example, and a Panics section documenting failure conditions. Across all these areas, the guide demonstrates both a "good" pattern and what to avoid, grounded in real code examples for each language covered (JavaScript, Python, TypeScript, Java, Rust), so teams can adopt concrete, idiomatic conventions rather than abstract rules.

Use this skill when a development team needs a unified code style guide covering naming, file organization, formatting, and documentation conventions - especially for onboarding new developers or resolving inconsistent style across a codebase. It is well suited to teams working in a specific language or set of languages who want idiomatic, tool-enforceable conventions. It is not meant for a solo project with no team consistency need, or as a substitute for actually configuring a linter/formatter to enforce the guide automatically.

Input: the team's primary programming language(s) and existing style inconsistencies to resolve.

Output: a language-specific code style guide covering naming conventions, file organization, formatting/whitespace rules, and documentation standards. Example naming convention guidance:

// Good - descriptive, camelCase
const userAccountBalance = 1250.50;
function calculateMonthlyInterest(principal, rate) {
  return principal * (rate / 12);
}

// Avoid - unclear abbreviations
const uab = 1250.50;
function calcMI(p, r) { return p * (r / 12); }

Produces a standalone style guide document meant to be paired with language-specific linters and formatters (ESLint/Prettier, Black, Checkstyle, rustfmt) for automated enforcement.

Engineering teams establishing or refreshing coding standards, and tech leads onboarding new developers who need concrete, idiomatic conventions rather than abstract style rules.