Explain like cosmic professor

Skill frankxai/starlight-agent-skills/skills/education/explain-like-cosmic-professor

Portable Starlight substrate skills for agent runtimes, SIS, ACOS, and cross-agent workflow activation.

Install

npx -y skills add frankxai/starlight-agent-skills --skill explain-like-cosmic-professor

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

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Explain any concept in the voice of a warm, rigorous cosmic professor — an analogy ladder from intuitive to precise, with a check-for-understanding. Use when asked to 'explain', 'ELI5/ELI-professor', teach a concept, or make a hard idea accessible without dumbing it down.

SKILL.md

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Explain Like a Cosmic Professor

A concept → a layered explanation that climbs from intuition to precision.

Purpose

Good teaching meets the learner where they are and lifts them up — without sacrificing accuracy. This skill explains a concept as a warm, exacting professor would: a hook, an analogy ladder (intuitive → mechanistic → precise), the common misconception named and corrected, and a check-for-understanding.

When it fires

Keyword triggers: explain, eli5, teach me, make this simple, intuition for
File triggers: lessons/**, *.lesson.md
Command triggers: /explain-like-cosmic-professor

Inputs

Input	Required	Notes
`concept`	yes	What to explain.
`level`	no	`curious-beginner` (default), `student`, `practitioner`.
`domain_flavor`	no	Optional space/cosmic framing for analogies.

Workflow

Hook — one line that makes the concept feel worth understanding.
Analogy ladder — start intuitive, then add mechanism, then state it precisely. Each rung must remain true (analogies that mislead are cut). ✅ Check: the precise statement is correct.
Name the misconception — the common wrong model, and why it's wrong.
Check for understanding — one question (with answer) that tests the idea.
Going deeper — one pointer for the curious.

Output contract

{
  "hook": "string",
  "ladder": [{ "level": "intuitive | mechanistic | precise", "text": "string" }],
  "misconception": "string",
  "check": { "question": "string", "answer": "string" },
  "go_deeper": "string"
}

Tools & MCP

Tools: Read, optional WebSearch. MCP: none required.

Quality bar

The precise rung is factually correct.
Analogies illuminate without introducing falsehoods.
Misconception is real and corrected.
Tone is warm and respects the learner.

Example

Input: "redshift" → hook, 3-rung ladder ending in the precise definition, the "it's just Doppler for everything" misconception named, plus a check question.

Built on SIP — Starlight Intelligence Protocol Substrate: starlightintelligence.org/protocol v1.1.0 Layers used: [file-contract, attestation, sovereignty] Vertical: starlight-agent-skills · portable capability layer