arcgis-docs-lookup

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Look up ArcGIS documentation against authoritative Esri sources and verify an API exists at a pinned version. Use when the user needs an ArcGIS API reference, ArcGIS Pro, Enterprise, or Notebook Server docs, or when another skill must confirm a class, method, global, or function is available at a target version.

3installs

Sourcevaldesrosier/arcgis-skills

Added on2026-08-27

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add valdesrosier/arcgis-skills arcgis-docs-lookup

SKILL.md Content

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ArcGIS Docs Lookup

Answer every ArcGIS question from the first-party source that owns it — never a stale mirror, a wrong-product page, or an unverified forum post.

Route to the owning source

developers.arcgis.com — ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript, ArcGIS API for Python, the REST API, and Arcade references.
developers.arcgis.com/enterprise-sdk — the ArcGIS Enterprise SDK, including Custom Data Feeds (CDF) provider development. A distinct product area from the developer references above — route CDF and Enterprise SDK questions here.
pro.arcgis.com — ArcGIS Pro, including ArcPy and geoprocessing.
enterprise.arcgis.com — ArcGIS Enterprise, Portal, and Notebook Server administration and runtime docs.

Never cite ArcMap, ArcCatalog, or ArcGIS Desktop documentation. It describes a retired product whose APIs have diverged from Pro and Enterprise. If a search returns an ArcMap or ArcGIS Desktop page, discard it and find the Pro or Enterprise equivalent.

Pin the version

Enterprise docs are version-scoped by URL path (e.g.

.../enterprise/11.2/...

). Pin every Enterprise URL to the target version you are working against — the release the caller named, or the one the user is on. An unversioned or mismatched Enterprise URL is not an acceptable citation.

Treat Community as a hypothesis, not a source

Esri Community, GeoNet, and Stack Exchange threads are leads to verify, never the citation. Trace every claim back to the owning first-party doc before relying on it.

When the reference page won't render

The ArcGIS API for Python and REST API references on developers.arcgis.com are client-rendered single-page apps. A plain fetch of one of these pages — even at a precise symbol anchor like

arcgis.gis.toc.html#arcgis.gis.Group.notify

— returns no usable content, because the symbol table is painted by JavaScript the fetch never runs. This is a tooling failure, not evidence the API is absent. Never downgrade "I couldn't render the reference" into "there is no such API." Instead, fall back to first-party sources that are machine-readable, in order:

Search the owning source's GitHub repo. For the Python API, search
```
Esri/arcgis-python-api
```
— the guide and sample notebooks, and especially the per-version
```
release_notes_*
```
notebooks under
```
guide/02-api-overview/
```
, enumerate classes and methods by name with anchor links back to the reference (this is where a symbol like
```
Group.notify()
```
surfaces even though its reference page won't render). Search the repo for the exact symbol name.
Introspect the installed package. When a live environment with the
```
arcgis
```
package is available, the package source is what the reference is generated from — read the truth directly with
```
help(Group.notify)
```
or
```
inspect.signature(...)
```
. Use the
```
python-notebook
```
skill to run it. The equivalent for the JS SDK is the
```
@arcgis/core
```
TypeScript declarations shipped on npm.

Only after these fallbacks come up empty may you report the symbol as unverified — and say "could not verify," not "does not exist," when a client-rendered page was the only thing blocking you.

Match the depth to the question

Quick existence or signature check ("does this class/method/global exist at version N") — read the owning reference page directly and answer inline. No file written.
Genuine investigation (a migration surface, a breaking-change sweep, synthesis across many pages) — escalate to the
```
research
```
skill if it is available, passing these routing and version rules so the background agent obeys them. If
```
research
```
is not installed, do the investigation inline against the same first-party sources.

Done when

Every claim is backed by a first-party URL on the correct domain, pinned to the target version wherever the docs are version-scoped, and no ArcMap/Desktop page or unverified Community thread remains as a citation. No "this API does not exist" conclusion rests on a reference page that merely failed to render — that path was exhausted through the GitHub-repo and package-introspection fallbacks first.