# Explain For

Explain a topic, code, error or design decision for one named audience (a 5-year-old, a...

- Repository: https://github.com/kirodotdev/KiroCrew (4711 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: Apache-2.0
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add kirodotdev/KiroCrew --skill explain-for -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add kirodotdev/KiroCrew --skill explain-for -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add kirodotdev/KiroCrew --skill explain-for -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add kirodotdev/KiroCrew --skill explain-for -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Explain a topic, code, error or design decision for one named audience (a 5-year-old, a manager, a designer, a grad student, a parent). Resolves who it is for, pins the ground truth first, then tunes vocabulary, analogy, tone and depth to that audience. Use when an audience is named.

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

# explain-for, write it for one named audience

One explanation cannot serve everyone. This skill makes you name the audience
first, verify the facts second, and only then write.

## Step 0, check that this is actually an audience request

You reach this skill from its index entry, or, when `skills.max_triggered` is
above its default of 0, from word-overlap against the trigger phrases above.
Either route is probabilistic and will sometimes land on a request that merely
contains the word "explain". Before entering the skill, confirm the user wants
an explanation **pitched at somebody**. If they just want to know why CI
failed, answer that question normally and ignore everything below.

## Step 1, resolve the audience

Pick exactly one audience.

**Check memory before guessing.** Crew carries a persistent user profile, and a
request like "explain this to my daughter" or "break this down for Priya" often
resolves against something already recorded, an age, a role, an interest.
Search memory and lessons for that person and use what is there; guessing an age
the profile already contradicts is the most visible way this skill fails.

If nothing resolves and no audience is named, do not silently invent one:

- Explicit smallest-audience phrasing ("dumb it down", "explain like I am")
  means **Age 5**. That is the request.
- Anything else with no audience, ask which audience in one line, or state the
  row you assumed in one clause so the user can correct it.

If the request names someone you cannot classify (a specific colleague, a title
absent from the tables), map them onto the nearest row and say which row.

### Ages

The rest: https://github.com/kirodotdev/KiroCrew/blob/HEAD/src/kiro_crew/builtin_skills/explain-for/SKILL.md