A good README does three jobs: tells a new user what the project does in one sentence, gets them running locally in under five minutes, and explains how to contribute. Most README files fail at all three — either because they were written hastily at launch or because they were never updated as the code changed.
AI README generation reads your actual codebase: package.json, setup scripts, configuration files, source code structure, and existing documentation. It extracts the real installation steps (not approximations) and generates usage examples from your actual API surface, not invented ones.
GitIntel adds context that generic README generators miss: it knows which parts of your codebase are AI-generated, and it can surface that in the README for projects where transparency about AI authorship is relevant — open source libraries, enterprise compliance contexts, and codebases that may undergo legal review. It also generates badges and shields that reflect your actual repo state rather than placeholder values.
Run `gitintel readme --generate` in any project directory to produce a structured README draft you can edit before committing.