Generating onboarding docs from a messy Notion export

The Problem

An ops lead at a 30-person company had 200+ pages of process documentation scattered across Notion. New hires were overwhelmed. The docs were:

• Duplicated: 3 different versions of "How to submit expenses"
• Outdated: References to tools they no longer used
• Disorganized: No clear hierarchy or reading order
• Inconsistent: Different formatting, tone, and detail levels

She'd been meaning to clean it up for months. Estimated time: 2-3 full work weeks.

The Solution

Step 1: Export from Notion

Notion lets you export your entire workspace as markdown files. We did that — ended up with ~180 .md files in a folder.

Step 2: Claude Code analysis pass

First, we had Claude Code read everything and produce a report:

Read all markdown files in this folder.
Create a report that identifies:
1. Groups of files covering the same topic
2. Files that reference tools or people no longer at the company
3. Files with conflicting information
4. A suggested table of contents for a clean onboarding handbook
Save as analysis.md

This took about 2 minutes and produced a remarkably accurate analysis.

Step 3: Merge and deduplicate

Using the analysis as a guide, we ran a second pass:

Using the analysis in analysis.md as your guide:
1. For each topic group, merge the files into one definitive version
2. Keep the most detailed and recent information
3. Flag anything that seems outdated (references to old tools, etc.)
4. Organize into sections: Getting Started, Day-to-Day, Tools, Policies
5. Write a table of contents with links
Save everything to /handbook/

Step 4: Human review

The ops lead spent about 3 hours reviewing and making corrections. Mostly:

• Confirming which tool references were outdated
• Adding context that only a human would know
• Adjusting tone for their company culture

Results

• Total time: ~4 hours (vs. estimated 2-3 weeks)
• Output: A clean 45-page onboarding handbook
• Files reduced: 180 → 12 well-organized chapters
• New hire feedback: "This is so much clearer than what we had before"

Takeaway

Claude Code is excellent at the grunt work of documentation: deduplication, reorganization, consistent formatting. The human value-add is the judgment calls — tone, accuracy of current processes, what to prioritize. The combination is dramatically faster than either alone.