Create a governed document

Before writing anything

1. Check it does not already exist. Run docgov create <type> "<name>" --check --json. It writes nothing and tells you who already owns the topic: create-new means go ahead, review-first names documents worth reading first, and update-existing names the document you should be editing instead. Read the named documents before you decide it is wrong — a second document on the same subject is how contradictions are born. For a wider look across every class, docgov find "<topic>" returns results in authority order.
2. Pick the class. docgov types lists all 56. If the user said "write docs for X", decide which class X actually is rather than defaulting to a guide. Do not invent a class.
3. Load the authoritative context. Run docgov brief <domain-or-topic>. Read it before writing. It carries the constitution, the canonical spec, the invariants in force and the machine contracts — the things your document must not contradict.

Create it

docgov create <type> "<name>" --domain <domain>

This puts the file in the canonical location, applies the template, declares the right authority and visibility, and wires depends_on / implements edges from documents it found to be related. It prints the required sections and the line limits.

If it refuses because an existing document already owns the name, that is the answer: go and edit that document. --force exists, but using it means the new document must say how it differs from the one it now sits beside.

Then write it

• Fill every required section. They are a deterministic gate: a TRD with no failure analysis fails docgov check, and rightly so.
• Stay inside the limit the command printed. If the content genuinely needs more, the document is probably two documents.
• Reference, do not restate. Machine contracts (OpenAPI, schemas, migrations) are authoritative; link them. Copying a schema into prose creates a second source of truth that will be wrong within a month.
• Declare invariants if this is a canonical document. Any line beginning INV-<DOMAIN>-001 becomes a first-class object that gets injected into every agent that later touches the matching code. This is the highest-value thing you can write.
• Map the code this document describes, in frontmatter: documents: ["src/licensing/**"]. Without it the document is invisible to drift detection.
• Write for the class's audience. A README is not an architecture document. A runbook is numbered steps with expected results, not an essay.

Finish

Run docgov check --path <new-file> and fix what it reports. Then docgov affected to see whether creating this document obliges you to update anything else.