git:20260913.ef23060 to git:20260916.50d6810

5 added, 4 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: course-development

- description: "Build a technical course: lessons, executable labs, prerequisites, guided practice, accessibility, release acceptance. Use when writing or revising a course, chapter, lab, or tutorial."

+ description: "Design technical courses, lessons, and executable labs with learning and acceptance criteria."

license: MIT

metadata:

+ kind: task

author: Médéric HURIER (Fmind)

source: github.com/fmind/dot/tree/main/skills/course-development

created: "2026-08-30"

- updated: "2026-09-13"

+ updated: "2026-09-16"

---

# Develop a Technical Course

- Build a course learners can understand, execute, and finish. Use [zensical](../zensical/SKILL.md) as the default course publisher; an existing course repository owns its platform, page schema, and task names. Use [quality-assurance](../quality-assurance/SKILL.md) for a broader test campaign.

+ Build a course learners can understand, execute, and finish. Use [zensical](../documentation-site/SKILL.md) as the default course publisher; an existing course repository owns its platform, page schema, and task names. Use [quality-assurance](../quality-assurance/SKILL.md) for a broader test campaign.

## Workflow

1. **Define the learner**: prerequisites, target capability, time, delivery format, and accessibility needs; keep only content that advances the outcome.

1. **Make outcomes observable**: give each lesson a primary capability and a completion signal; introduce terms before using them.

1. **Ground examples**: derive code and counts from shipped source or generated evidence; explain the reason beside a command and distinguish captured output from illustration.

1. **Record terminal examples when useful**: follow the [VHS workflow](../fmind-visuals/references/recording.md) for reproducible demos with synthetic inputs; retain the command transcript and a static equivalent for accessibility.

1. **Make practice executable**: state the goal, starting state, a prediction, ordered work, verification, and what remains afterward; label temporary changes and external access/cost.

1. **Review the learner surface**: navigation, reading order, keyboard use, contrast, alt text, mobile layout, copy/paste, and diagrams explained in prose.

1. **Validate progressively**: run the changed lesson's checks and examples, then the repository's learner gate from a clean environment; record unexercised platforms or live services.

1. **Prepare acceptance**: connect outcomes to evidence, known limitations, and a correction path; publication follows the user's authorized scope.

## Optional Reference Profile

Read [reference-course.md](references/reference-course.md) and its [page template](references/page.md) only for a course that adopts those Markdown conventions, seven exercise fields, capture manifest, and task names. Otherwise use the course's own authoring contract.

## Gotchas

- **Prerequisites**: state the required machine or knowledge state, not merely a previous chapter number.

- **Published routes**: preserve URLs or provide tested redirects/aliases when changing them.

- **Exercises**: use meaningful local work by default; live models, cloud resources, and destructive cleanup need their declared authority and limits.

- **Evidence**: a successful site build does not show that a learner can complete the lesson.

## Documentation

- Reference course: `~/mlops-courses/agentops-open-course` (its `AGENTS.md` owns the page frame, gates, and authoring rules).

- - Companion skills: [mermaid](../mermaid/SKILL.md) (diagrams), [playwright](../playwright/SKILL.md) (browser checks), [quality-assurance](../quality-assurance/SKILL.md) (test campaign), [production-readiness](../production-readiness/SKILL.md) (proof ladder).

+ - Companion skills: [mermaid](../diagrams-as-code/references/mermaid.md) (diagrams), [playwright](../playwright/SKILL.md) (browser checks), [quality-assurance](../quality-assurance/SKILL.md) (test campaign), [production-readiness](../production-readiness/SKILL.md) (proof ladder).