# SchemaCrawler Scribe + Google OKF: AI-Ready Database Docs You Can Keep in Git

> Source: <https://dev.to/sualeh/schemacrawler-scribe-google-okf-ai-ready-database-docs-you-can-keep-in-git-2off>
> Published: 2026-07-14 23:58:09+00:00

If your database documentation is always behind production, this is for you.

**SchemaCrawler Scribe** generates structured database documentation directly from live schema metadata, using ** Google Open Knowledge Format (OKF)**.

The result is documentation that works for both developers and AI agents, without creating a second documentation workflow.

Source code: [SchemaCrawler/schemacrawler-scribe](https://github.com/schemacrawler/SchemaCrawler/tree/main/schemacrawler-scribe)

Most teams end up in one of two modes:

SchemaCrawler Scribe targets the middle ground:

This turns documentation into part of your engineering workflow, not a side task.

SchemaCrawler Scribe outputs in [Google Open Knowledge Format (OKF)](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/knowledge-catalog/blob/d44368c15e38e7c92481c5992e4f9b5b421a801d/okf/SPEC.md), which gives you one format that serves multiple use cases:

In short: one documentation artifact that supports people, automation, and long-term maintainability.

SchemaCrawler Scribe is in the same family of tooling as SchemaSpy: both crawl schema metadata and generate browsable documentation.

Like SchemaSpy-style documentation workflows, Scribe covers:

So if your team already likes auto-generated schema docs and relationship views, SchemaCrawler Scribe keeps that experience while producing **Google OKF Markdown** artifacts that are easier to review in Git and consume with AI tooling.

Run standard SchemaCrawler from the command line or Docker. Use the `scribe`

command with `okf`

output format.

Tips:

`--title`

to label the generated documentation set`--expanded-output`

to generate a directory tree instead`--include-lint`

to generate schema design issue reports

```
docker run \
  --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)",target=/home/schcrwlr/share \
  --rm -it \
  schemacrawler/schemacrawler \
  /opt/schemacrawler/bin/schemacrawler.sh \
  --server=sqlite \
  --database=sc.db \
  --info-level=maximum \
  --command scribe \
  --output-format okf \
  --title "Books Database" \
  --expanded-output \
  --include-lint \
  --load-row-counts \
  --output-file=share/schema
```

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