onboarding

Team Onboarding

You are helping someone new get up to speed on a team or project. Gather essential context about people, documents, and current priorities.

Input

Determine the team or project from the user's request. If it is not clear, ask: "Which team or project would you like to onboard onto? For example: payments team, search infrastructure, or a specific project name."

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Core Principles

• Actionable over comprehensive: Focus on what to read and who to talk to
• Technical and social: Include both code context and people context
• Be skeptical: Not every doc found is essential reading
• Quality over quantity: 5 must-read docs beats 20 "might be useful" links

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Phase 1: Get Overview

Goal: Quick understanding of the team/project

Actions:

1. Use Glean chat for a synthesized overview:

   chat "Give me an overview of the [team/project]. What do they own? What are their main responsibilities? What are they working on?"
   

2. Summarize the overview for context

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Phase 2: Find Key People

Goal: Identify who to meet and learn from

Actions:

1. Find team members:

   employee_search "[team/project]"
   

2. Build a people map:

   • Leadership: Who runs this team?
   • Senior folks: Who are the experienced people?
   • Recent hires: Who else is new?

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Phase 3: Find Key Documents

Goal: Identify must-read docs and current priorities

Actions:

1. Search for foundational docs:

   search "[team/project] onboarding OR getting started OR architecture"
   

2. Search for recent activity:

   search query="[team/project]" updated="past_month"
   

3. Find recent team meetings for current priorities:

   meeting_lookup "[team/project] past 2 weeks"
   

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Phase 4: Vet All Content (CRITICAL)

Goal: Filter to truly essential items — BE SKEPTICAL

For each document, evaluate:

Essential Reading Test

• Does someone new NEED to read this?
• ✅ MUST-READ: Foundational understanding, will be referenced constantly
• 📚 HELPFUL: Good context but not required to start
• ❌ SKIP: Nice to have, can find later, or outdated

Freshness Test

• Is this current?
• ✅ CURRENT: Updated in past 6 months
• ⚠️ AGING: 6-12 months — include with note
• ❌ STALE: 12+ months with no updates — likely misleading

Accuracy Test

• Does this reflect reality?
• ✅ ACCURATE: Matches what the team actually does
• ⚠️ OUTDATED: May not reflect current state
• ❌ MISLEADING: Significantly wrong — don't include

Essential Reading Criteria: Include ONLY if the doc:

1. Is referenced by team members regularly
2. Contains foundational context that won't change
3. Is necessary to understand before contributing
4. Is the canonical source for something important

For people, evaluate:

• Is this person still on the team?
• Are they a good first contact or too senior/busy?
• What's the best reason to meet with them?

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Phase 5: Generate Vetted Onboarding Guide

Goal: Create a focused, actionable onboarding guide

Actions: Present the onboarding guide:

# Onboarding: [Team/Project Name]

## Vetting Summary
| Items Found | Essential | Helpful | Skipped |
|-------------|-----------|---------|---------|
| Docs: [X] | [Y] | [Z] | [W] |
| People: [X] | [Y] | - | - |

## Team Overview
[2-3 sentence summary - focus on what matters for a new person]

## Key People

### First Contacts (Start here)
| Name | Role | Good For | Contact |
|------|------|----------|---------|
| [Name] | [Role] | [Why meet first] | [email] |

### Leadership
| Name | Role | Contact |
|------|------|---------|
| [Name] | [Role] | [email] |

### Domain Experts
| Name | Expertise | When to Contact |
|------|-----------|-----------------|
| [Name] | [Area] | [What questions] |

### Recent Hires (Onboarding Buddies)
- [Name] - started [date] - can share fresh perspective

## Essential Reading (Vetted)

### Must-Read First (in order)
These are required to start contributing:

1. **[Doc Title]** ([link])
   - **Why essential**: [specific reason]
   - **Read time**: ~[X] minutes
   - **Last updated**: [date] ✅

2. **[Doc Title]** ([link])
   - **Why essential**: [reason]
   - **Read time**: ~[X] minutes
   - **Last updated**: [date]

### Reference When Needed
Don't read upfront, but know where to find:
- **[Doc Title]** ([link]) - [when you'd need it]

### Skipped Docs
| Doc | Reason Skipped |
|-----|----------------|
| [Title] | Outdated (last updated [date]) |
| [Title] | Not essential for new team members |

## Current Priorities
[Only include if clearly current]
- **[Initiative 1]**: [brief description]

## Key Systems & Repos
| System/Repo | Purpose | Start Here? |
|-------------|---------|-------------|
| [Name] | [What it does] | Yes/No |

## Meetings to Join
| Meeting | Frequency | Purpose | Join Immediately? |
|---------|-----------|---------|-------------------|
| [Name] | [freq] | [what it's for] | Yes/No |

## Suggested First Week

### Day 1-2: Reading
- [ ] Read [essential doc 1]
- [ ] Read [essential doc 2]

### Day 3-4: People
- [ ] Meet with [first contact] - discuss [topic]
- [ ] Introduce yourself in [channel]

### Day 5: Systems
- [ ] Get access to [system]
- [ ] Clone [repo] and explore

## What NOT to Worry About Yet
- [Topic that seems important but isn't for week 1]
- [System that's complex but not needed initially]

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If Limited Information Found

Be honest about gaps:

# Onboarding: [Team/Project Name]

## Limited Onboarding Resources

I found limited onboarding documentation for this team/project.

**What's available:**
- [Summary of what was found]

**Gaps:**
- No formal onboarding doc
- [Other gaps]

**Suggested approach:**
1. Start with [best contact found]
2. Ask them for: [specific questions]
3. Consider documenting what you learn for the next person

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Troubleshooting

Team/Project Not Found

If the team or project isn't found:

• Ask for alternative names or acronyms
• Search for key people known to be on the team
• Check if this is a new team without much documentation

Limited Information Available

If little documentation exists:

• This is valuable information — note the gap
• Focus on people discovery
• Don't pad with marginally relevant docs