Hexdocs Fetcher

oliver-kriska/hexdocs-fetcher

Fetch HexDocs for Elixir libraries with HTML-to-markdown conversion. Use when looking up docs on hexdocs.pm — modules, functions, guides, changelogs.

831 tokens

context cost

the whole folder, loaded on every use

files

instructions only

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

514

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/oliver-kriska/claude-elixir-phoenix --skill hexdocs-fetcher

What it tells the agent to use

found in the instruction text

WebFetch fetches pages from the network

The instruction itself

9 sections, as written by the author

HexDocs Fetcher

Efficiently fetch Elixir library documentation from hexdocs.pm using Claude Code's native WebFetch tool.

Usage

When researching libraries, use WebFetch:

# Fetch library overview
WebFetch(
  url: "https://hexdocs.pm/oban",
  prompt: "Extract the main documentation, including module overview, installation instructions, and key functions. Format as clean markdown."
)

# Fetch specific module docs
WebFetch(
  url: "https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix_live_view/Phoenix.LiveView.html",
  prompt: "Extract the module documentation including all public functions, their specs, and examples."
)

# Fetch getting started guide
WebFetch(
  url: "https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/getting-started.html",
  prompt: "Extract the complete getting started guide content."
)

Token Efficiency

WebFetch automatically converts HTML to markdown and extracts relevant content:

|--------|----------|---------------|---------|

Integration with hex-library-researcher

When evaluating libraries, fetch docs efficiently:

# Get library overview with focused extraction
WebFetch(
  url: "https://hexdocs.pm/oban",
  prompt: "Extract: 1) Installation instructions 2) Main features 3) Basic usage example"
)

Common HexDocs URLs

# Library overview
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}

# Module documentation
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}/{Module}.html
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}/{Module.Submodule}.html

# Guides
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}/guides.html
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}/{guide-name}.html

# API reference
https://hexdocs.pm/{library}/api-reference.html

Prompt Strategies

Use focused prompts for better extraction:

# For API docs
prompt: "Extract all public function docs with @spec and examples"

# For guides
prompt: "Extract the complete guide content preserving code examples"

# For troubleshooting
prompt: "Extract any troubleshooting sections, common errors, and FAQs"

# For configuration
prompt: "Extract configuration options and their defaults"

Caching

WebFetch includes automatic 15-minute caching. When fetching the same URL multiple times in a session, results are cached automatically.

For longer persistence, save to planning directory:

# After fetching, write the result to a file
Write(
  file_path: ".claude/plans/{slug}/research/docs/oban.md",
  content: "{extracted content}"
)

Tidewave Alternative

If Tidewave MCP is available, prefer mcp__tidewave__get_docs for exact version-matched documentation:

mcp__tidewave__get_docs(module: "Oban.Worker")

This fetches docs for the exact version in your mix.lock.

Iron Laws

NEVER fetch entire HexDocs sites — always target specific modules or guides
Use focused prompts — generic fetches waste tokens; specify what to extract
Prefer Tidewave when available — exact version match beats generic hexdocs.pm

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take oliver-kriska/hexdocs-fetcher from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.