diff --git a/hacking/return_skeleton_generator.py b/hacking/return_skeleton_generator.py
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..05c791bf242
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hacking/return_skeleton_generator.py
@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+# (c) 2017, Will Thames <will@thames.id.au>
+#
+# This file is part of Ansible
+#
+# Ansible is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+#
+# Ansible is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+# along with Ansible.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+# return_skeleton_generator.py takes JSON output from a module and
+# and creates a starting point for the RETURNS section of a module.
+# This can be provided as stdin or a file argument
+#
+# The easiest way to obtain the JSON output is to use hacking/test-module
+#
+# You will likely want to adjust this to remove sensitive data or
+# ensure the `returns` value is correct, and to write a useful description
+
+from __future__ import print_function
+from collections import OrderedDict
+import json
+import sys
+import yaml
+
+
+# Allow OrderedDicts to be used when dumping YAML
+# https://stackoverflow.com/a/16782282/3538079
+def represent_ordereddict(dumper, data):
+    value = []
+
+    for item_key, item_value in data.items():
+        node_key = dumper.represent_data(item_key)
+        node_value = dumper.represent_data(item_value)
+
+        value.append((node_key, node_value))
+
+    return yaml.nodes.MappingNode(u'tag:yaml.org,2002:map', value)
+
+
+def get_return_data(key, value):
+    # The OrderedDict here is so that, for complex objects, the
+    # summary data is at the top before the contains information
+    returns_info = {key: OrderedDict()}
+    returns_info[key]['description'] = "FIXME *** add description for %s" % key
+    returns_info[key]['returned'] = "always"
+    if isinstance(value, dict):
+        returns_info[key]['type'] = 'complex'
+        returns_info[key]['contains'] = get_all_items(value)
+    elif isinstance(value, list) and value and isinstance(value[0], dict):
+        returns_info[key]['type'] = 'complex'
+        returns_info[key]['contains'] = get_all_items(value[0])
+    else:
+        returns_info[key]['type'] = type(value).__name__
+        returns_info[key]['sample'] = value
+        # override python unicode type to set to string for docs
+        if returns_info[key]['type'] == 'unicode':
+            returns_info[key]['type'] = 'string'
+    return returns_info
+
+
+def get_all_items(data):
+    items = sorted([get_return_data(key, value) for key, value in data.items()])
+    result = OrderedDict()
+    for item in items:
+        key, value = item.items()[0]
+        result[key] = value
+    return result
+
+
+def main(args):
+    yaml.representer.SafeRepresenter.add_representer(OrderedDict, represent_ordereddict)
+
+    if args:
+        src = open(args[0])
+    else:
+        src = sys.stdin
+
+    data = json.load(src, strict=False)
+    docs = get_all_items(data)
+    if 'invocation' in docs:
+        del(docs['invocation'])
+    print(yaml.safe_dump(docs, default_flow_style=False))
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    main(sys.argv[1:])