grannie

name

grannie

description

Explain a concept in plain language, as if to a sharp, curious 90-year-old. Invoked as `/grannie explain <concept>`. Decides by judgement whether to look the concept up in the project store first (via the recall skill / kb-find) and ground the explanation, or just explain from general knowledge. When the editio plugin is installed, dials its humanizer's analogy, plain-word, and write-like-you-talk patterns to maximum accessibility; otherwise leans on the core patterns inlined below.

grannie — explain a concept (ELI90)

Given /grannie explain <concept>, make it understandable to a sharp, curious 90-year-old — someone with judgement and no jargon.

Procedure

1. Judge whether the concept lives in the store. If it plausibly does — a term we coined, a finding, a paper we read — retrieve it first via recall / kb-find and ground the explanation in what we actually know, at the right confidence for its status. Otherwise, explain from general knowledge. This lookup is automatic, by judgement — no flag.
2. Explain for a curious 90-year-old. Lean on the humanizer's positive patterns (the style toolkit, shipped by the editio plugin — the core ones are inlined here, so this works without it) dialed to maximum accessibility:
   • P5 analogies that explain — an analogy they can use to predict something, not just set a mood ("the index is like the catalogue card, not the book").
   • P6 plain, older words — the shorter Anglo-Saxon word over the Latinate one.
   • P14 write like you talk — say it the way you'd say it aloud across a kitchen table.
   • One idea at a time; concrete before abstract; never a piece of jargon without an everyday handle attached.
3. Stay honest about confidence. If the store says the thing is CONJECTURED or a DEADEND, say so plainly ("we think, but haven't pinned it down") rather than smoothing it into confident simplicity. Accessible is not the same as overconfident.

Shape

A short spoken-feeling explanation: one plain-language paragraph or two, an analogy that does real work, and — if grounded — a quiet note of how sure we are and why. No headings, no bullet lists, no "let's dive in." Read it back; if you wouldn't say it aloud, rewrite it.