Canary Skill Reference

documenting-service-dependencies

The documenting-service-dependencies skill is the Canary discovery reference for finding a project’s service dependencies and, during registration, adding the project documents that accompany the inventory set Canary monitors. The how-to lives on Discover Dependencies.

Skill contract

Field	Value
Slug	`documenting-service-dependencies`
Purpose	Map and document a codebase’s service dependencies.
Input	A project’s source code.
Dependency kinds	`external_saas`, `internal_system`

Triggers

The skill file lists these trigger phrases:

Trigger phrase	What it means
`document our integrations/dependencies`	Identify and document the codebase’s dependencies.
`what external services does this connect to`	Map the outbound dependency surface.
`make a health-check doc`	Produce the dependency inventories and health-check docs.

Outputs

The skill produces these Markdown documents:

Artifact	Kind	What it contains
`EXTERNAL_SAAS.md`	`external_saas`	Inventory of third-party SaaS reached over the public internet, with category sections, a Mermaid architecture diagram, and per-service detail.
`EXTERNAL_SAAS_HEALTHCHECKS.md`	`external_saas`	Health-check document for each external SaaS, with result interpretation and copy-paste probe commands.
`INTERNAL_SYSTEMS.md`	`internal_system`	Inventory of internal systems, with category sections, a Mermaid architecture diagram, and per-service detail.
`INTERNAL_SYSTEMS_HEALTHCHECKS.md`	`internal_system`	Health-check document for each internal system, with result interpretation and copy-paste probe commands.
`PROJECT_EXPLAINER.md`	`project`	Plain-language overview of what the project does, the stack it uses, and how its pieces fit together.
`PACKAGE_MAP.md`	`monorepo`	Monorepo-only package map that describes the user-facing packages and what each one covers.

During registration, the skill also backfills or updates a project’s docsUrl when evidence supports it, creates PROJECT_EXPLAINER.md for every project, and creates PACKAGE_MAP.md only for monorepos. Single-package repositories do not get a package map.

The skill documents only; it does not execute the health-check commands. The inventory files map to registered dependencies in gloria.dev as external_saas and internal_system.

Canary relationship

The skill’s final handoff feeds the dependency inventory into gloria.dev so Canary can monitor it continuously. That is the bridge from discovery to the Canary loop.