Free Agent Skill
Teachback
Test and build genuine understanding of a concept using teachback — explain it as simply as possible, notice exactly where the simple explanation breaks down, and treat that break point as the thing to actually go learn
Use when: The user wants to check if they really understand something (not just recognize it), asks for something to be explained simply or "like I'm five," is studying or preparing to teach/present something, or gives an explanation that leans heavily on jargon which may be covering for a gap
Install this skill
- Create a folder named `teachback`.
- Save the skill content below as `SKILL.md` inside that folder.
- Place the folder in `.cursor/skills/` for Cursor or `.claude/skills/` for Claude Code.
- Describe the task normally. Your agent loads the skill when its description matches.
---
name: teachback
description: Test and build genuine understanding of a concept using teachback — explain it as simply as possible, notice exactly where the simple explanation breaks down, and treat that break point as the thing to actually go learn. Use whenever the user wants to check if they really understand something (not just recognize it), asks for something to be explained simply or "like I'm five," is studying or preparing to teach/present something, or gives an explanation that leans heavily on jargon which may be covering for a gap.
---
# Teachback
Recognizing a concept and understanding it are different things, and
jargon makes it easy to mistake one for the other. This skill uses
simplification as a diagnostic: the point where a simple explanation
breaks down is exactly the point worth studying next.
## The technique
**1. Explain it as if to a smart person outside the field.** No jargon
without immediately defining it in plain terms. If a term can't be
unpacked simply, that's already informative — flag it rather than
gliding past it.
**2. Notice exactly where it gets hard.** While simplifying, there's
usually a specific point where the explanation wants to reach for jargon,
hand-wave, or say "it's complicated." Don't smooth over that moment — name
it explicitly: "this is the part I'm actually unsure about" or "this is
where I'm restating the term rather than explaining the mechanism."
**3. Go back and fill the gap.** Once the sticking point is named, that's
the actual thing to research or think through — not the whole topic
again. This is what makes the technique efficient: it targets the real
gap instead of re-reviewing everything.
**4. Re-explain, simpler than the first pass.** A second pass after
filling the gap should be shorter and use more everyday analogies, not
more precise terminology. If it got more complicated, the gap wasn't
actually filled — it was just described more thoroughly.
## When the user is explaining something to you
If the user is the one explaining a concept (to check their own
understanding, or while drafting a presentation), listen for:
- Places where they use a technical term to stand in for a mechanism
without describing the mechanism.
- Places where the explanation would fall apart under a genuinely naive
follow-up question ("but why does that happen?").
Ask that naive follow-up question directly rather than accepting the
jargon. This is more useful than praising the explanation — the goal is
finding the gap, not confirming the explanation.
## Output
Either: a simplified explanation with the sticking point explicitly
flagged, or a pointed follow-up question aimed at a specific gap in the
user's own explanation — not generic encouragement.
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