# Explain

Keeps the principal current on the fundamentals of what is going on in the principal's...

- Repository: https://github.com/danielmiessler/LifeOS (19669 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-28
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add danielmiessler/LifeOS --skill Explain -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add danielmiessler/LifeOS --skill Explain -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add danielmiessler/LifeOS --skill Explain -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add danielmiessler/LifeOS --skill Explain -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Keeps the principal current on the fundamentals of what is going on in the principal's projects, work and technical infrastructure: spoken interactive lessons on the conversation topic, deep explanations of an area's fundamentals read fresh from live sources, and quizzes that remember what the principal missed. USE WHEN teach me, /tm, /teach-me, tutorial, teach me this, walk me through this interactively, learn mode, quiz me, help me actually understand what we just did, explain fundamentals, /ef, what are the fundamentals of, how does this project actually work, catch me up on, refresh me on, quiz fundamentals, /qf, quiz me on the fundamentals, test what I know about, am I still current on. NOT FOR elaborating my last answer (the elaborate shortcut), the LifeOS core pitch (lc), story explanations of content (StoryExplanation), designed visual maps (Visualize), discovery interviews on a half-formed idea (/discuss).

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Explain

Keeps the principal up on the fundamentals of what is going on across the principal's projects, work and technical infrastructure, deeply and thoroughly. The principal lives inside many systems at once and cannot hold all of them in mind, so this skill teaches the topic in front of them, explains the parts of any area that it cannot lose, and quizzes the principal so gaps show up before they cost anything. It absorbed the Teach skill on 2026-10-16, when the principal asked for these intents and for any existing teaching skill to be merged in rather than duplicated.

## Ideal State

- The principal leaves each session able to explain or apply the material, shown by the principal's own answers, not by how much was printed.
- What he is told about a project, area or piece of infra is true of it today: read this session from the live source, never recalled.
- Over time the skill knows where his understanding is thin, because every quiz answer is on the record, and each new quiz goes after the misses and whatever changed since he was last tested.

## Intent Routing

| Intent | Trigger | File |
|--------|---------|------|
| **Teach** | "teach me", "/tm", "/teach-me", "tutorial", "quiz me" on what we just covered | `Intents/Teach.md` |
| **ExplainFundamentals** | "/ef", "explain the fundamentals of", "catch me up on", "how does X actually work" | `Intents/ExplainFundamentals.md` |
| **QuizFundamentals** | "/qf", "quiz me on the fundamentals of", "test what I know about", "am I still current on" | `Intents/QuizFundamentals.md` |

| File | Read when |
|------|-----------|
| `Setup.md` | first-time setup: the voice server and Fish key the spoken narration needs, and a read-only check |

The rest: https://github.com/danielmiessler/LifeOS/blob/HEAD/LifeOS/install/skills/Explain/SKILL.md