explain-this SKILL.md skillA
explain-this from pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os/explain-this@git:20260717.a14dc21Pins git:20260717.a14dc21 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os
- Path
research-skills-hub/collected-skills/explain-this/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260717.a14dc21, committed Jul 17, 2026
- Size
- 5,267 bytes
- Repository stars
- 3
- License
- MIT
Explain any digital artifact — a paper, PDF, article, code diff, or codebase — so the person actually understands it, not just skims it. Explanations are shaped by a persistent learner profile, gated by comprehension quizzes, and feed a spaced-repetition review loop. USE WHEN: explain this, explain this paper / PDF / article / diff / repo, help me understand this, what does this mean, what is this really saying, break this down, walk me through this, quiz me, review my cards, explain-this…
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Explain This Understanding is the bottleneck, not information. This skill turns any digital artifact into an explanation the user can genuinely absorb — shaped to how they learn, checked by quizzes that prevent false confidence, and retained through spaced-repetition review. The goal is formation, not summarization: who the user becomes by understanding, not just what they can skim. ## State contract All user state lives in `EXPLAIN_THIS_HOME` (default `~/.explain-this/`) — never in this skill's install directory, so it survives skill updates and is shared across agent hosts: ``` ~/.explain-this/ LEARNER.md # who this person is as a learner — read before EVERY explanation memory/cards.jsonl # spaced-repetition cards + SM-2 scheduling state memory/signals.jsonl # append-only quiz-attempt evidence ``` ## First run If `~/.explain-this/LEARNER.md` does not exist, do NOT explain anything yet. Run the interview in `references/interview.md` (~10 minutes), draft LEARNER.md from `references/learner-template.md`, show it to the user, and apply their corrections. The profile is the product's first artifact. ## Every explanation follows the spine …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os/explain-this@sha256:135e14cbdecaafbaThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260717.a14dc21, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_kjc4w3u2754z3g5b)
2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Jul 17, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (5267 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os · 3 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-19 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_kjc4w3u2754z3g5b GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=pengqianhan/ai-human-research-os/explain-this GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/135e14cbdecaafbaf8acc1d43ab73bca917b3c2f0831b2600ee436ad40c5786e
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.
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