---
type: concept
title: "Docs and Templates as Coding-Assistant Context"
description: "Feeding llms.txt docs and proven reference templates to an AI coding assistant so it builds from real context instead of hallucinating."
tags: [ai-coding, documentation, context-engineering, templates, mcp]
videos: [the-ultimate-guide-to-building-your-own-mcp-servers-free-template, build-and-ship-any-mcp-server-in-minutes-full-guide, ag-ui-just-released-the-new-wave-of-ai-agent-apps, ai-youtube-is-only-claude-hype-now]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# Docs and Templates as Coding-Assistant Context

Docs-as-agent-context is the practice of feeding real documentation and proven reference templates into an AI coding assistant so it builds from grounded context instead of hallucinating. The strongest form is a worked example, not raw docs: "This example is going to help the AI coding assistant 10 times better than any documentation that you can pull from MCP to help it understand how to build these servers." A template short-circuits the gap between knowing the API and getting a working result: "Just because you can feed all the documentation into an AI coding assistant to build a server for you doesn't mean that it's going to work all the time."

The documentation side leans on machine-readable formats designed for exactly this. Many projects now ship an `llms.txt` (or `llms-full.txt`) file: "they have this llms-full.txt. And so you can take this and you can give this as documentation to your AI coding assistant." You point the assistant at real files in your project and tell it to study them: "you could tell your Claude Code... to go look at these files to understand how I've implemented an MCP server following all these best practices." Cole frames the whole move as an application of the broader discipline: "This is kind of like context engineering... All of this can be context to provide really good examples to the AI coding assistant."

Docs can be pulled statically (paste `llms.txt`, drop a template repo in the project) or dynamically via retrieval. Crawlers turn a docs site into a knowledge base, "MCP servers like my Crawl4AI one where you could crawl this and use this as a rag knowledge base for windsurf or roo," and modern agents fetch fresh docs on demand: "a lot of what you need you can get by simply asking Claude Code how this new feature works, and it has real-time access to up-to-date documentation." Official MCP docs even ship an LLM-oriented tab: "they literally have a tab for building MCP with LLMs."

## Part of

- [Context Engineering](./context-engineering.md) - docs and templates are prime dynamic-context material.

## Related

- [Skills](./skills.md) - package docs and instructions as an on-demand capability.
- [Build Your Own MCP Server](./build-your-own-mcp-server.md) - the running example where a template beats raw docs.
- [MCP](./mcp.md) - crawler and docs MCP servers surface documentation as retrievable context.
- [Generative UI](./generative-ui.md) - `llms.txt` from UI frameworks feeds the assistant.
- [Agent Security](./agent-security.md) - vetting what external docs and templates you trust into context.
- [Vibe Coding](./vibe-coding.md) - grounding in real docs is the antidote to ungrounded vibe coding.

## Tools

- [Crawl4AI](../entities/tools/crawl4ai.md) - crawls a docs site into a RAG knowledge base for the assistant.
- [Context7](../entities/tools/context7.md) - serves version-specific documentation to coding agents on demand.
- [Claude Code](../entities/tools/claude-code.md) - fetches up-to-date docs in real time to explain and apply new features.
- [Notion](../entities/tools/notion.md) - All-in-one docs and workspace app, supported alongside Confluence and Google Drive as a knowledge-base source for chat assistants.

## Sources

- [The ULTIMATE Guide to Building Your Own MCP Servers (Free Template)](../sources/the-ultimate-guide-to-building-your-own-mcp-servers-free-template.md) - "[0:08:36] This example is going to help the AI coding assistant 10 times better than any documentation that you can pull from MCP to help it understand how to build these servers."
- [Build and Ship Any MCP Server in MINUTES (Full Guide)](../sources/build-and-ship-any-mcp-server-in-minutes-full-guide.md) - "[0:30:05] This is kind of like context engineering like I talked about in my last video. All of this can be context to provide really good examples to the AI coding assistant."
- [AG-UI Just Released: The NEW WAVE of AI Agent Apps](../sources/ag-ui-just-released-the-new-wave-of-ai-agent-apps.md) - "[0:19:15] they have this llms-full.txt. And so you can take this and you can give this as documentation to your AI coding assistant."
- [AI YouTube Is Only Claude Hype Now](../sources/ai-youtube-is-only-claude-hype-now.md) - "[0:03:38] a lot of what you need you can get by simply asking Claude Code how this new feature works, and it has real-time access to up-to-date documentation."
