Doc Co-authoring
Overview
Anthropic's official collaborative document writing workflow. A three-stage structured process from context understanding through iterative refinement to reader testing.
Three-Stage Workflow
Stage 1: Context Gathering
Goal: Fully understand the requirements before writing.
Meta-context questions
- What type of document? (Technical spec / blog post / internal report...)
- Who is the target audience? What's their background?
- What's the expected impact of this document?
- Format and length requirements?
Info dumping
- Ask users to provide all relevant context at once
- Don't interrupt — let information flow naturally
- Flag points needing later clarification
Clarifying questions
- Ask specific questions about ambiguous points
- Close understanding gaps
- Confirm key assumptions
Exit condition: When you have sufficient understanding, move to Stage 2.
Stage 2: Refinement & Structure
Goal: Build a high-quality document section by section.
For each section, execute this loop:
Clarify → Brainstorm (5-20 options) → Curate best → Gap check → Draft → Iterate
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Clarify | Confirm specific requirements for this section |
| Brainstorm | Generate 5-20 candidate content items per paragraph/point |
| Curate | Select the most valuable content |
| Gap check | Verify no critical information is missing |
| Draft | Write the initial draft |
| Iterate | Move to next section after 3 consecutive rounds with no changes |
Full document review: After all sections are complete, read through checking:
- Does the logical flow between sections work?
- Is terminology usage consistent?
- Is there redundant content?
Stage 3: Reader Testing
Goal: Catch blind spots with "fresh eyes."
Predict reader questions
- What questions would a reader most likely ask?
- List 3-5 predicted questions
Sub-agent testing (if available)
- Dispatch a fresh Claude instance to read the document
- Collect its questions and confusion points
- These are your blind spots
Additional checks
- Any ambiguous wording?
- Any internal contradictions?
- Can a non-domain-expert understand it?
Iterate based on test results
- Fix discovered issues
- Return to Stage 2 to rewrite specific sections if needed
Tips
- Effective guidance: Don't always agree with Claude — say "This part is wrong, change it to..."
- Handling deviations: If writing veers off track, point directly to where to return
- Context management: Periodically summarize current state as documents grow
- Artifact management: Save intermediate versions in the filesystem for easy rollback