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Wesley Bertipaglia
Wesley Bertipaglia Subscriber

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🦆 Quack Docs — AI-Powered Code Documentation From Your CLI

#devchallenge #awschallenge #ai #webdev

This is a submission for the Amazon Q Developer "Quack The Code" Challenge: Crushing the Command Line

Hey devs! 👋

Introducing Quack Docs — a powerful command-line tool that generates complete, high-quality documentation for code in any programming language, leveraging the capabilities of the Amazon Q Developer CLI. No chunking, no partials — just clean, comprehensive docs with a single command.

📦 Source Code: GitHub Repository
🛠️ Built With: Python and Amazon Q Developer CLI

📚 Table of Contents

  1. 💡 The Idea
  2. 🛠️ How It Works
  3. 🚀 Getting Started
  4. 🧪 Usage
  5. ✨ Why You'll Love It
  6. 🔭 What’s Next
  7. 🧠 Final Thoughts

💡 The Idea

Let’s be honest: writing documentation isn't most developers idea of fun.
So I thought — what if you could skip the boring part and instantly generate beautiful, structured docs right from your terminal for any programming language?

Quack Docs was born to solve just that.

What It Does:

  • 📄 Generates Markdown documentation for your code files.
  • 🧠 Adds smart, context-aware docstrings directly into your code.
  • ⚡ Works with a single command — no chunking or manual editing required.

🛠️ How It Works

Quack Docs

Here’s what happens under the hood when you run Quack Docs:

  1. 📂 Reads Your Code File
    The tool reads the entire contents of the provided source file — no splitting or chunking needed.

  2. 🧠 Determines Output Mode
    It checks whether to:

  • generate an external Markdown file, or
  • inject inline docstrings (if --inplace is used).
  1. ✍️ Builds a Prompt and Sends It to Amazon Q Based on the selected mode, it creates a tailored prompt, sends it to Amazon Q Developer CLI, and saves the output — either as a .md file or a modified code file with docstrings.

🚀 Getting Started

📦 Prerequisites

  • Python 3.8 or higher, you can download it from python.org.
  • pipx for installing Python applications in isolated environments.
  • Amazon Q CLI for code analysis and documentation generation.

⚡ Setup

1️⃣ Clone the Repo 

git clone https://github.com/wesleybertipaglia/quack-docs.git
cd quack-docs
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2️⃣ Set Up Amazon Q CLI

Follow the official setup guide and authenticate:

q login
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3️⃣ Install Quack Docs 

make install
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That's it, now quack-docs is ready to use! 🎉

🧪 Usage

▶️ Generate Markdown Documentation 

quack-docs --file path/to/your_file.py
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➡️ Creates a Markdown file like:
./docs/quack_your_file_20250510_103000.md

You can also choose a custom output directory:

quack-docs --file path/to/your_file.py --output ./my_docs/
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➡️ Creates:
./my_docs/quack_your_file_20250510_103000.md

📄 Sample Markdown Output: 

# Quack Docs — calculator.py

file: calculator.py  
created at: 2025-05-10  
---

## Overview
The Calculator class provides basic arithmetic functions and stores the result of the last operation.

## Methods

### add(a, b)
Performs addition of two numbers and stores the result in memory.

Parameters:
• a: First number  
• b: Second number

Returns:
• The sum of the two numbers
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▶️ Insert Docstrings into Your Code 

quack-docs --file path/to/your_file.py --inplace
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➡️ Overwrites your file with inline docstrings.

You can optionally save the modified file into a different directory while preserving its filename:

quack-docs --file path/to/your_file.py --inplace --output ./src/
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➡️ Saves:
./src/your_file.py

📝 Before: 

def add(a, b):
    return a + b
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✅ After: 

def add(a, b):
    """
    Add two numbers and return the result.

    Args:
        a: First number
        b: Second number

    Returns:
        The sum of a and b.
    """
    return a + b
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⚠️ Important: The --output parameter must always be a directory path, not a full file path.

✨ Why You'll Love It

Quack Docs:

  • 🦆 Instantly documents your code with zero hassle
  • 📑 Outputs well-structured Markdown or enhances your source files with rich docstrings
  • ⚡ Automates a boring task so you can focus on building
  • 🎉 Adds a touch of duck-themed joy to your terminal experience

🔭 What’s Next

Planned improvements include:

  • 📊 Documentation coverage stats
  • 🧩 VS Code extension
  • 🐣 Terminal duck animation while docs generate

🧠 Final Thoughts

Quack Docs is a no-nonsense, fun little tool that helps developers focus on what they love — coding — while Amazon Q Developer CLI handles the documentation.

Thanks to AWS and DEV for a fun, productive challenge.

Let the ducks document. 🦆✨

Top comments (15)

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srbhr profile image
𝚂𝚊𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚑 𝚁𝚊𝚒 •

It's vibe documentation. :)

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

Vibe-driven development (VDD) is the future hahaha

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dev_99718084404de profile image
Dev •

I love this one!!

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

Thank you so much 🦆

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sarahkeithp profile image
Sarah Keith •

Really cool idea! Love the inline docstring option, that’s a nice touch. Good luck with the challenge! 🦆

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

Thank you so much! 🦆✨ I’m glad you liked the inline docstring option, it was one of those little features I knew had to be in there. Appreciate the support and good luck to you too if you're participating! 🚀

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perisicnikola37 profile image
Nikola Perišić • • Edited

Cool idea. Is Amazon Q free?

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

Yes, Amazon Q has a free plan, I have used it in my tests and it has a good free tier

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omaryousifkamal profile image
Omar Yosuif •

that's

that's quackiy

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

🦆🦆🦆

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michael_liang_0208 profile image
Michael Liang • • Edited

Great Post! 🦆

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wesleybertipaglia profile image
Wesley Bertipaglia •

Hi Michael, thank you so much 🦆

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