eli5 is agent-read markdown (skill) from stevepolitodesign/skills: Explain something to someone who knows nothing about it..
Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.
What the file says
# ELI5
The user has no foothold. `/understand` questions them about a model they already
hold; here there is no model to question, and asking produces a guess you then have to
correct. So read the thing, then explain it — plainly, concretely, once.
Two ways this fails. You explain it in the vocabulary of the thing itself ("the
reconciler converges the cluster toward desired state"), which only reads to someone
who already understands it. Or you reach for concreteness and invent it: a config
value that isn't in the file, a sample record nobody has. The invented one is worse,
because it's memorable, wrong, and this reader has nothing to catch it with.
## 1. Find the thing
The target is `$ARGUMENTS`, or ask. It arrives as a path, a name they keep seeing
(`sidekiq`, `helm`, `useEffect`), a word off a ticket (`chargeback`, `dunning`), a
link, or pasted text.
A path is the thing. A name or a word gets looked for in this repo first — manifests,
config, `grep -ri` — since the version this codebase uses beats the general one, which
covers ten features they'll never touch. Not here at all? Say so in one line, explain
…
Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_pw7foih25kos4o4n
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=stevepolitodesign/skills/eli5
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/da8b270dd786084ded434da6747d85c33f367adf94e216a67fb647fa3fa806bf
Your agent 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.
stevepolitodesign/skills · diff-explainer/SKILL.md · Builds a shareable HTML walkthrough of the current changes, highlighting risks, tradeoffs, and alternatives considered.
stevepolitodesign/skills · review/SKILL.md · Review a change for defects, then against its spec, its codebase's conventions, the domains trying to emerge from it…
coldteadotai/pr-lens · skills/eli5/SKILL.md · WHAT: Explains a codebase, a folder, a feature, a command or a pull request to someone who knows nothing about it, as a…
dcouple/pane · main/src/services/paneChatBundle/skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Teach an unfamiliar topic from first principles with a picture-first HTML explanation, saved in Grain when connected…
mblode/agent-skills · skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Applies the house explanation style: concrete terms, optional analogy, no minimizers or promotional vocabulary, and…
doodledood/manifest-dev · claude-plugins/manifest-dev-tools/skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old. Use when the user types /eli5 <topic> or asks for a dead-simple picture…
naveedharri/benai-skills · plugins/all-skills/skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old. Use when the user types /eli5 [topic] or asks for a dead-simple picture…
kanevry/session-orchestrator · .cursor/skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old — restate my last output, or a named topic, in plain words without dropping a…
kanevry/session-orchestrator · skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old — restate my last output, or a named topic, in plain words without dropping a…
kanevry/session-orchestrator · .codex-plugin/skills/eli5/SKILL.md · Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old — restate my last output, or a named topic, in plain words without dropping a…
