WTFM

Write the F***ing Manual.
A plugin for your coding agent that writes the user docs. Screenshots included.

Install · Quick start · Examples · CLI · Publish · FAQ · Docs · Website

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WTFM is a plugin for your coding agent that writes your user docs. Ask
Claude Code or Codex
for a guide and it reads your source, writes the steps in plain language, and shows every
screen with a screenshot rendered from your real templates and CSS. No running app, no
manual captures, no account.

Not API reference, not a README: docs for the people who will never read your code,
like the customer who can't find the export button, or the admin inviting their team.

WTFM was formerly SupportPages Writer. The supportpages command still works as
an alias for wtfm, and existing installations, settings and SUPPORTPAGES_*
environment variables are unchanged.

Set it up once in your terminal, then just ask your agent:

curl -fsSL https://wtfm.sh/install | bash

wtfm setup          # once per computer

wtfm init           # once per project

You → Claude Code: Write an illustrated guide to inviting a teammate.

Features

• Written from your source. Routes, button labels and flows come from the code,
  not from a description you type, so the steps match what users actually see.
• Screenshots without running the app. Mockups are rebuilt from your own markup,
  styles and branding, then rendered to PNG in a local headless Chromium.
• Plain Markdown output. Each article is an index.md with its images beside it,
  ready to commit next to your code or drop into any docs site.
• Checked before it's saved. Every article passes structure, copy and screenshot
  checks first.
• Uses the agent you already have. Claude Code or Codex, with your own subscription
  and model settings.
• Local-first. Nothing is sent to SupportPages.io unless you choose to publish.

Examples

The same loop on other open-source codebases. Each image is one screenshot from a
guide WTFM wrote from that repository's source; the apps were never run.

immich-app/immich · SvelteKit	paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx · Angular	maybe-finance/maybe · Rails
How to create a new album	How to create a tag and apply it to a document	How to add a new account

For a whole help centre, see WTFM's own docs: every
article and screenshot there was written by WTFM from this repository.

Install

curl -fsSL https://wtfm.sh/install | bash

The installer downloads a checksum-verified release with its own Node.js, installs
the wtfm command into ~/.local/bin (no sudo), and offers to add it to your
PATH. It also installs supportpages as an alias for wtfm.

You'll need:

• macOS or Linux, on ARM64 or x64 (on Windows, use WSL)
• Claude Code or Codex,
  installed and signed in
• Git

Chromium for screenshots is downloaded the first time you run wtfm setup.

Updating: releases check for updates once a day and install them in the background.
Run wtfm update to update now, or set SUPPORTPAGES_AUTO_UPDATE=0 to turn
automatic updates off.

Build from source

You'll need Node.js 22.12 or later, npm and Git.

git clone https://github.com/SupportPages-io/wtfm.git
cd wtfm
./install-cli.sh

This builds your checkout and installs it as wtfm (with the supportpages alias).
Run ./install-cli.sh again after pulling changes.

Quick start

Configure once in the terminal, then do everything else in your coding agent.

1. Set up your computer

wtfm setup

This connects Claude Code and/or Codex, adds the SupportPages.io writer to them and
downloads the screenshot renderer. When it asks how you want to work, choose
Save articles in my projects without an account.

2. Set up your project

cd path/to/your-product
wtfm init

Pick where articles should be saved and which model to use. WTFM then
studies the project's structure, styles and branding once, so every article starts
from that analysis.

3. Ask your coding agent

Open Claude Code or Codex in your project (restart any session that was already open)
and ask for an article in plain words:

Write an illustrated guide to inviting a teammate.

A few minutes later the article is in your project:

output/articles/how-to-invite-a-teammate/
├── index.md
├── block_open-settings.png
├── block_invite-form.png
└── block_send-invite.png

That's the whole loop. Some other things to ask:

What help articles do we have?

Write a troubleshooting article for when a sign-in link has expired.

CLI commands

You only need the terminal to set things up and keep them running. Writing happens in
your coding agent.

Run wtfm --help for every option. status and doctor accept --json.

Your articles

• Where they go. output/articles/<slug>/ by default. To keep them in your repo,
  choose a folder like docs/help during init or with wtfm configure.
• Writing style. Pick from friendly, minimal, technical or formal with
  wtfm configure.
• Screenshots. Each article gets up to three. The main path gets them first;
  optional branches are described in text. Every screenshot carries a small
  "created automatically by supportpages.io" strip.

How it works

1. setup connects a local MCP server and a
   writer agent to Claude Code or Codex.
2. init has your agent map the project once: framework, routes, layouts, CSS and
   branding.
3. When you ask for an article, the writer agent reads the relevant source, writes the
   steps, and builds each screenshot as an HTML mockup of your real UI.
4. The mockups are rendered to PNG with a local Chromium, checked against your source,
   and saved with the article.

Publish

Give your users somewhere to read it. A Markdown folder in your repo helps nobody
who can't find it. SupportPages.io,
made by the same team, turns the guides WTFM writes into a help centre your users can
search and ask: on your own domain, in your branding, and kept current as the product
changes.

• Kept current on every merge. When a pull request merges, SupportPages.io reads
  the diff and drafts the article updates for you to review.
• Video walkthroughs. Each guide can come with a narrated video that clicks through
  the same steps, with captions.
• Answers, not just search. Readers ask in their own words and get an answer drawn
  from your articles, with the sources linked.
• Your branding on your own domain, an editor to review drafts before anyone sees them,
  and publishing straight from your coding agent.

Everything above works without it, and a free account hosts up to 10 articles.

The same pattern applies: connect once in the terminal, then work in your agent.

Connect a project:

wtfm publish

You'll sign in or create an account in your browser and choose a help centre. Any
articles you've already saved upload as drafts. (Setting up a new project? Choose
Publish them to a SupportPages.io help centre during wtfm init instead.)

Then keep asking your agent:

Write a guide to exporting a report.

New articles arrive in the help centre as drafts, with a link to review them in the
editor. Publishing is always a separate step: click Publish in the editor, or ask:

Publish the guide to exporting a report.

A help centre never needs access to your GitHub or Bitbucket. Only wtfm yolo does.

wtfm yolo: write the whole manual

Starting from nothing? wtfm yolo plans every guide your product needs and
writes them all at once, on SupportPages.io's servers instead of your computer and your
coding agent's usage.

wtfm yolo

It walks you through whatever is missing: browser sign-in, choosing or creating a help
centre, and connecting your repository (SupportPages.io needs read access to write from
your code). It then shows your plan's article allowance and asks before starting
(--yes skips the question). The free plan covers your first 10 guides.

Progress shows live: sections, recommended articles, then drafts as they are written.
Everything lands as drafts; nothing goes live until you publish it in the editor, whose
link is printed at the end. Ctrl+C only stops watching: the run keeps going, and
wtfm status picks it up again. If a run fails, run wtfm yolo again to resume it
without losing the drafts already written.

Privacy

• Local projects send only anonymous usage counts and crash reports to
  SupportPages.io (see below). Your coding agent and its model provider read your
  source, as they do for any other task.
• Publishing uploads the article, its images and a small provenance record.
  Your source code is never uploaded.
• wtfm yolo writes on SupportPages.io from the repository you connect there;
  it is the only command that gives SupportPages.io access to your code.
• Credentials are stored in private files under ~/.config/supportpages, never in
  your repository.
• Project analysis runs unattended. init and analyse start your agent with its
  permission prompts off (--dangerously-skip-permissions for Claude Code,
  --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox for Codex). Writing articles uses the
  agent's normal approval prompts.

Plugin hooks

Installed as a Claude Code plugin, WTFM registers two hooks. Neither sends anything
over the network except the Chromium download, and neither can block or change a
tool call.

• SessionStart checks whether Chromium for screenshots is installed. If it
  isn't, it starts puppeteer's Chromium download in the background, once, and
  returns straight away without printing anything into the session.
• PostToolUse runs after every tool call, but does nothing unless an article
  is being written (a .rtfm-trace/CURRENT marker in your project). During a run it
  appends one line per tool call to .rtfm-trace/<article>.ndjson in your project:
  the time, tool name, file path, search pattern and the first 500 characters of a
  shell command. The trace stays on your computer and is used to spot repeated
  work in a run. It prints nothing and always exits successfully.

Anonymous usage counts and crash reports

WTFM tells us how many installs are in use and when something breaks, so we
can fix it. It says so the first time you set up a project, and it's easy to turn
off. It is sent to SupportPages.io without your sign-in and stays anonymous until
you sign in from this computer; after that, usage from this computer is linked to
your account. Turning it off stops both.

What is sent

• A random install ID created on this computer (not derived from it), the WTFM
  version, the coding client's name (e.g. claude-code), your OS, CPU architecture
  and Node.js major version.
• A count when WTFM is first used and when it is uninstalled (and whether its
  settings were kept), when a project is set up (local or hosted),
  and when an article or video walkthrough finishes: its outcome, where it went
  (local, uploaded or generated on SupportPages.io), an error code if it failed,
  and how many seconds it took; likewise when a wtfm yolo run starts and ends.
• For unexpected errors only: the error type and code, and stack frames with every
  path outside WTFM replaced by <external>. Messages from other code are
  never sent.

What is never sent: your code, file names or paths, article titles or content,
repository or project names, or credentials. Your IP address is not stored. The
install ID is also sent when you sign in from this computer, which is what links
later usage from it to your account.

Turn it off with any of these:

• ask your coding agent to turn off SupportPages telemetry;
• run wtfm telemetry off;
• set SUPPORTPAGES_TELEMETRY=0 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1.

It is always off in CI. wtfm doctor shows whether it's on and why; set
SUPPORTPAGES_TELEMETRY_DEBUG=1 to print each report to stderr as it is sent.

FAQ

Is this for API docs or READMEs?
No. WTFM writes end-user documentation: how-to and troubleshooting guides for the
people who use your product, with screenshots. Your agent already handles developer
docs well.

Why not just ask Claude Code to write the docs?
It will write you decent steps. It won't show the screen, and it guesses at labels it
hasn't looked up. WTFM adds a project analysis, a renderer that builds screenshots from
your own UI code, and checks that run before anything is saved.

What does it cost?
WTFM is free and Apache 2.0. Articles run on your own Claude Code or Codex subscription.
wtfm yolo is the exception: it runs on SupportPages.io and needs an account; the free
plan covers 10 guides.

wtfm: command not found
Open a new terminal, or run the PATH command the installer printed.

My agent can't see the SupportPages tools.
Restart any Claude Code or Codex sessions that were open during wtfm setup.

Setup won't finish.
Run wtfm doctor, fix what it reports, then run wtfm init again.

An article was interrupted halfway.
Ask your agent to continue it, or run wtfm status to see where it stopped.

Does it collect usage data?
Only anonymous counts and crash reports, never your code or articles. See
Anonymous usage counts and crash reports
to see exactly what is sent or turn it off.

Can I use it on Windows?
Yes, inside WSL.

More on supportpages.io/wtfm.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. When reporting a bug, include your OS,
wtfm --version, the command you ran and its output, with credentials and
private code removed. For larger changes, open an issue first so we can agree on the
approach.

To work on the code:

npm ci
npm test
node scripts/cli.mjs --help

The article engine in engine/ is synced from upstream on each engine release, so
changes there are reviewed here and ported back by the maintainers.

License

Apache 2.0. The UI stylesheets bundled under engine/ keep their own
licenses; see NOTICE. The license doesn't cover the SupportPages name or logo.