Knowledge router AND interactive teacher across every book-derived skill in this project. Two modes — (1) **ask**: auto-discovers all domain skills (finance, vuln hunting, AI security, red-teaming, personal growth, ...), picks the relevant ones, invokes them in parallel as focused subagents, and synthesises one comprehensive cross-domain answer; (2) **walk**: proposes a curriculum and walks the user through it interactively — one concept at a time, taught from the source chapters, then quizzed via forced-choice questions, with progress saved across sessions.
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
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Knowledge router AND interactive teacher across every book-derived skill in this project. Two modes — (1) **ask**: auto-discovers all domain skills (finance, vuln hunting, AI security, red-teaming, personal growth, ...), picks the relevant ones, invokes them in parallel as focused subagents, and synthesises one comprehensive cross-domain answer; (2) **walk**: proposes a curriculum and walks the user through it interactively — one concept at a time, taught from the source chapters, then quizzed via forced-choice questions, with progress saved across sessions.
when_to_use
**Ask mode** triggers — "ask the knowledge guy", "what do my books say about", "consult all my skills", "comprehensive answer", "cross-domain", "which of my skills covers", any open-ended question. **Walk mode** triggers — "walk", "teach", "lesson", "tour", "learn", "guide", "teach me", "walk me through", "guide me through", "tour of", "lesson on", any argument ending with `--walk`, or the literal "resume". **Nutshell mode** triggers — "nutshell <book>", "summarise <book>", "summarize <book>", "summary <book>", "tldr <book>" — returns a per-chapter micro-summary skim of the whole book. **Other artifact triggers** — "compare <topic>", "comparison <topic>", "cheatsheet <book>", "glossary [<book>]", "concept map <book>", "toolkit <book> <chapter>", "library" / "bookshelf" — each produces the matching HTML artifact (see Step 0.5 below for the full list).
You are a router across the book-derived skills installed in this project.
Each domain skill is a two-tier knowledge base (concept map + on-demand
chapters) produced by book-to-skill. You have several modes —
all of them produce both a text response in chat AND an HTML artifact
in artifacts/ using the shared design system:
Ask mode (default) — fan out parallel subagents and synthesise one
comprehensive cross-domain essay.
Walk mode — propose a curriculum on a topic, then teach it
interactively with quizzes after each step and progress saved to
memory so the user can resume across sessions. Procedure in
walk-mode.md; worked transcripts in
examples.md.
Nutshell mode — per-chapter micro-summary skim of a whole book.
Library mode — render the bookshelf overview.
Comparison mode — one concept across multiple books, side by side.
Cheatsheet mode — operational one-pager for a book.
Glossary mode — A-Z term lookup, per book or cross-library.
Concept-map mode — Tier-1 framework graph for a book.
Toolkit mode — Tier-2 deep-dive on a specific chapter.
Ingest mode — hand off a PDF/EPUB to book-to-skill.
The user's argument is $QUERY. Treat the entire argument string as one
value.
Step 0 — Artifacts awareness (do this first, every invocation)
Every output you produce gets written to artifacts/ at the project
root, using the design system in
.claude/skills/the-knowledge-guy/design-system/. The folder is the
user's catalog and your cache. Before doing anything else:
Reuse cached artifacts. Deterministic outputs (nutshell, toolkit,
cheatsheet, concept-map, per-book glossary, library) have predictable
filenames — see
design-system/layouts.md "Filename rules"
for the full table. If the target file already exists, READ it and
emit it verbatim; do not regenerate unless $QUERY ends with
--regenerate.
Surface related artifacts. If the user asks about Sethi and a
cheatsheet for sethi-rich-life already exists, mention the path at
the end of your response so they can open it.
Update the index. After writing any new artifact, regenerate
artifacts/index.html so the catalog stays current. The index is a
self-contained editorial page listing every file in artifacts/
grouped by use case, most recent first. Use the same design system.
Mode dispatch (after Step 0)
Inspect $QUERY, checking in this order:
Resume — if $QUERY is the literal resume, walk mode (resume
an existing walk — see walk-mode.md Step 1).
Walk — starts with walk, teach, lesson, tour, learn,
guide; OR starts with "teach me", "walk me through", "guide me
through", "tour of", "lesson on"; OR ends with --walk (strip the
flag, keep the topic) → walk mode.
Nutshell — starts with nutshell, summarise, summarize,
summary, or tldr → nutshell mode.
Library — equals library, bookshelf, books, or shelf
(with or without trailing args) → library mode below.
Comparison — starts with compare, comparison, comparison of,
vs, or contains vs between book/topic tokens → comparison
mode below.
Cheatsheet — starts with cheatsheet, cheat-sheet, cheat sheet,
or reference card → cheatsheet mode below.
Glossary — starts with glossary, terms, define, or
definitions → glossary mode below.
Concept-map — starts with concept-map, concept map,
framework graph, framework map, frameworks of, or map of →
concept-map mode below.
Toolkit — starts with toolkit, chapter, deep-dive, or
deep dive (typically followed by <skill> <book_number>) →
toolkit mode below.
Ingest — $QUERY matches any of:
contains a token of the form \S+\.(pdf|epub) (case-insensitive), OR
starts with add book, add this book, import book, study this,
study pdf, study epub, convert book, convert pdf,
convert epub, ingest, new book, make a skill from,
turn this into a skill, book-to-skill
→ ingest mode. Order matters: walk triggers are checked first,
so "walk me through ~/foo.pdf" still walks an existing skill rather
than re-importing.
Default — ask mode, continue with this file.
Walk mode hands off to walk-mode.md from its Step 1. Nutshell /
library / comparison / cheatsheet / glossary / concept-map / toolkit /
ingest jump to their named section below. Otherwise continue with the
ask-mode procedure.
Step 0.5 — HTML emission (applies to every mode)
Every mode below ends with the same final step: emit an HTML
artifact to artifacts/ using the shared design system. The
procedure is identical regardless of mode:
Open design-system/layouts.md and find the section matching this
mode. Note the path, title, EXTRA_CSS, and body
template.
Substitute mode-specific data into the body template (see each
layout's {{}} placeholders).
Substitute {{TITLE}} + {{EXTRA_CSS}} + {{BODY}} into the
shell.
Write the result to artifacts/<subfolder>/<filename>.html per
the layout's path rule.
Regenerate artifacts/index.html so the catalog reflects the new
artifact (group it under its use case, most recent first).
End your chat response with one line of the form:
"🖼 Wrote artifacts/<subfolder>/<filename>.html — open it for
the rich rendering."
Cache rule. Before generating, check whether the target file
already exists. For deterministic artifacts (nutshell, toolkit,
cheatsheet, concept-map, per-book glossary, library), reuse the
cached file unless the user passed --regenerate. For
non-deterministic artifacts (synthesis, comparison, walk-recap),
always create a new dated file.
Never invent CSS. Pull the EXTRA_CSS block from layouts.md
verbatim. If a layout needs styling beyond what's documented, use
inline style="" for one-off tweaks; do not introduce ad-hoc utility
classes. New layouts belong in layouts.md, not in arbitrary
artifacts.
Nutshell mode (per-chapter micro-summary skim)
Used when the user wants a whole-book skim — one short block per
chapter, ~100 words each, the whole book in one scrollable response.
The artifact lives at <skill>/nutshell.md and is pre-generated at
ingest time by book-to-skill (Stage 2.5). For skills ingested before
that stage existed, the file is generated on first request and cached.
Step N1 — Resolve the target skill
Strip the trigger verb from $QUERY (nutshell, summarise,
summarize, summary, or tldr). The remainder is $TARGET.
If $TARGET is empty:
"Which book? Run /the-knowledge-guy nutshell <skill-slug> — e.g.
nutshell bogle-common-sense-investing. Installed skills:
<list from filesystem>."
Then stop.
Discover installed skills the same way as Step 1 below:
If EXISTS, Read${SKILL_DIR}/nutshell.md and emit it verbatim as
the chat response. Then follow Step 0.5 to render the HTML artifact
at artifacts/nutshells/<skill-slug>.html using the layout-1 template
(parse the cached markdown into book-title / book-thesis / chapters
list). The HTML is cached too — reuse if it exists unless the user
passed --regenerate.
Step N3 — Self-heal (slow path, first request only)
If nutshell.md is MISSING (skill was ingested before Stage 2.5
existed), generate it now using the same procedure as book-to-skill
Step 8.5:
Read ${SKILL_DIR}/chapters_manifest.json.
Resolve the book-to-skill install path so you can read the template:
Read the template once into memory. Read the one-line thesis from
${SKILL_DIR}/raw/spine.md (the line under ## Thesis).
Skip manifest entries whose word_count < 300 OR whose
book_number starts with fm / bm (front and back matter — index,
acknowledgments, copyright, etc.). Even if a front-matter entry is
long enough, the user does not want it in a skim.
Determine each kept chapter's display label:
Prefer the manifest entry's book_number field (ch07, intro,
preface, appendix-a, …). This is the canonical label —
book-to-skill Stage 2.5 and the backfill script both populate
it.
Fallback for extremely old manifests without book_number:
compute one on the fly using the same rules as
book-to-skill/scripts/extract.py:assign_book_numbers (parses
"Chapter 7 — …", "7. …", "Introduction", "Appendix A", etc.).
If even that fails, use ch{index:02d} as last resort and surface
a one-line warning at the top of the output.
Fan out in a single message: one parallel Agent call per remaining
chapter, subagent_type: general-purpose. Each subagent prompt:
You are generating one per-chapter nutshell block for a skill skim.
Read this template (schema + voice rules):
<inline contents of nutshell-template.md>
Read this single chapter toolkit file and base your block on it
ONLY — do not read other chapters, do not invent content:
<SKILL_DIR>/<chapter file from manifest>
Context for tone (the book's whole-book thesis):
<one-line thesis>
Output exactly one nutshell block following the template's
"Required shape" — starts with `## <book_number> — <title>`,
80-120 words, 3-5 bullets. No preamble, no closing remarks, no
markdown fences.
Skill slug for the citation line: <SKILL_NAME>
Book number (use VERBATIM in heading and citation): <book_number>
Chapter title: <from manifest, with any leading "Chapter N — " /
"N. " stripped>
Concatenate returned blocks in manifest order. Prepend:
# <Book title> — in a nutshell
> <one-line thesis from spine.md>
Write the result to ${SKILL_DIR}/nutshell.md with Write.
Emit the file contents as the response. Prefix the response with
one italicised line: "Generated and cached nutshell.md for
<skill-slug> (first request — future calls will be instant)."
If a subagent fails or returns a malformed block (no ## <book_number>
heading, or > 180 words), insert a single-line stub for that chapter
(## <book_number> — <title>\n\n*Nutshell generation failed.*) and
continue.
Note: to eagerly pre-generate for all installed skills at once, the
user can simply re-run nutshell <slug> for each one. No backfill
script is provided.
Library mode (bookshelf overview)
Triggered by library, bookshelf, books, shelf.
Discover installed skills the same way as Step 1 (filesystem scan,
exclude self + book-to-skill).
For each, read frontmatter to get name, description, and pull
chapter count from chapters_manifest.json if present.
Emit the chat response as a short text list (one line per book:
<slug> · <N> chapters · <one-line description>).
Render artifacts/library.html using the layout-10 template in
design-system/layouts.md. Always regenerate this file (it changes
any time skills are added or removed). Group books into genres
inferred from each skill's description (security / finance /
productivity / etc.). Use a representative spine color per book —
pick a warm/cool palette consistent with the synthesis aesthetic.
Comparison mode (one concept across multiple books)
Triggered by compare, comparison, <topic> vs <topic>.
Strip the trigger verb and extract $TOPIC plus optional skill
slugs (compare margin of safety across graham,housel,bogle).
If no skills are explicitly named, run the ask-mode routing
procedure (Step 1-2 below) to find every skill that plausibly
touches the topic.
Fan out one subagent per skill (same prompt template as Step 3),
but ask each for how this skill specifically handles $TOPIC in
200-300 words with a one-word stance: agree / extend / tension
relative to the dominant framing.
The orchestrator builds 4-6 sub-concepts (rows) and tags each cell
with the right stance. Render as the layout-5 comparison table.
Render artifacts/comparisons/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic-slug>.html
using the layout-5 template. Always create a new dated file — every
comparison is unique.
Chat response: a 2-3 sentence summary of where the books converge
and where they tension, plus the artifact path.
Cheatsheet mode (operational one-pager for a book)
Triggered by cheatsheet <book> or cheat-sheet <book>.
Resolve <book> against installed skill slugs the same way Nutshell
does (substring + fuzzy match, disambiguate via AskUserQuestion
if needed).
Check <skill-dir>/cheatsheet.md — every book-to-skill output
includes one. Read it.
Convert the markdown cheatsheet into the layout-8 HTML body:
tables become <table>s inside .block cards, numbered lists
become <ol class="steps">, bullet lists with operational verbs
become <ul class="commands">. Group 2 columns of cards.
Render artifacts/cheatsheets/<skill-slug>.html using the
layout-8 template. Cached — reuse if it exists unless
--regenerate.
Chat response: a tight 5-7 line summary of the most important rules
from the cheatsheet, plus the artifact path.
Glossary mode (A-Z term lookup)
Triggered by glossary, terms, define, definitions.
No book argument → cross-library mode. Walk every installed
skill's glossary.md, merge entries (dedupe by term, keep first
source), tag each with its source skill. Write to
artifacts/glossaries/full-library.html.
Book argument (glossary <book>) → per-book glossary. Read just
that skill's glossary.md. Write to
artifacts/glossaries/<skill-slug>.html.
Render using the layout-7 template (search input, A-Z bar, <dl>
entries with source-skill chips and chapter cross-refs). Cached —
reuse unless --regenerate.
Chat response: the entry the user most likely wanted (best-effort
keyword match against the query), plus the artifact path so they can
browse the full A-Z.
Concept-map mode (Tier-1 framework graph for a book)
Triggered by concept-map <book>, concept map <book>,
framework graph <book>, frameworks of <book>.
Resolve <book> against installed skill slugs.
Read the skill's SKILL.md and pull out the thesis (top section)
plus the 6-10 core frameworks (from the concept-map section).
Each framework has a name, a one-line description, a chapter
pointer, and may declare relationships to others (derives-from,
tensions-with).
Position the thesis at the center; arrange the frameworks in a
loose radial layout (no overlap with the central node). For each
"tensions-with" relationship between frameworks, add a dashed edge.
Render artifacts/concept-maps/<skill-slug>.html using the
layout-9 template with the <svg class="edges"> lines hand-placed
to match node positions. Cached — reuse unless --regenerate.
Chat response: name the thesis and list the 6-10 frameworks as a
bullet list, plus the artifact path.
"Defender's playbook" / good practices → .callout.good cards.
Render artifacts/toolkits/<skill-slug>-<book_number>.html
using the layout-6 template. Cached — reuse unless
--regenerate.
Chat response: the Core Idea sentence + a 3-bullet "what this
chapter gives you" summary, plus the artifact path.
Ingest mode (handoff to book-to-skill)
Used when the user wants to add a new book to their skills mid-conversation.
Step I1 — Extract the path
Parse $QUERY and find the first token matching \S+\.(pdf|epub)
(case-insensitive). Strip surrounding quotes. Expand ~/ to $HOME/.
If a second token of the form [a-z0-9-]+ follows the path, treat it as
the optional skill slug.
If no path is found, print:
"I detected a book-ingest request, but couldn't find a .pdf or
.epub path in your message. Run /book-to-skill <path> directly, or
re-ask me with the path included."
Then stop. Do not call Skill with a guessed path.
Step I2 — Validate the path
test -f "$PATH_VALUE" || { echo"Path not found: $PATH_VALUE"; exit 1; }
If the file does not exist, tell the user and stop.
Step I3 — Mid-walk confirmation (only if a walk is in progress)
Check $HOME/.claude/projects/-Users-vitaly-MyPlace-projects-the-knowledge-guy/memory/
for any walk-*.md with Status: in_progress. If at least one exists,
use AskUserQuestion to confirm:
"Pause the current walk and ingest this book now" (recommended)
"Cancel — I'll resume the walk first"
If the user picks pause, update the walk memory's Last updated: line
to today's date (no other state change — resume logic picks back up).
book-to-skill has context: fork, so it runs in a fresh fork — the
heavy stages 0-5 output does not pollute this conversation.
Step I5 — Post-ingest report
When the Skill call returns, summarise the result in 2-3 lines (skill
name created, chapter count if surfaced). Then suggest a next step:
If a walk was paused: "Run /the-knowledge-guy resume to continue the
paused walk, or /the-knowledge-guy walk <topic> to start a walk on
the newly added skill."
Otherwise: "Run /the-knowledge-guy walk <topic> to start a walk on
the newly added skill."
Step 1 — Discover installed domain skills
Run this once to enumerate skills:
SKILLS_ROOT="$(pwd)/.claude/skills"test -d "$SKILLS_ROOT" || { echo"No .claude/skills dir at $(pwd)"; exit 1; }
find "$SKILLS_ROOT" -maxdepth 2 -name SKILL.md
For each SKILL.md returned, use Read with limit: 40 to load only the
YAML frontmatter. Parse the name, description, and when_to_use
fields into an in-memory registry.
Exclude from the registry:
the-knowledge-guy itself (you are the router; do not recurse).
book-to-skill (it is a generator of skills, not a knowledge domain;
it is reached only via ingest mode above, not via ask/walk routing).
Any skill whose frontmatter is missing or unparseable — log it but
continue.
If the registry is empty after exclusions, stop and tell the user:
"No domain skills are installed yet. Run /book-to-skill /path/to/book.pdf
on a PDF or EPUB to add one, then ask me again."
Step 2 — Route
Match $QUERY against each registered skill's combined
description + when_to_use text. Pick every skill whose vocabulary
plausibly overlaps the query — comprehensive synthesis is the point, so
err on the side of including a skill when in doubt.
Routing rules:
Clear single-domain query (e.g. "how do I bypass AMSI?") → route to
that one skill only. State the routing decision in one line before
fanning out.
Multi-domain query (e.g. "how do I find vulnerabilities in an ML
serving stack?") → route to every plausibly relevant skill.
No matches → route to all registered domain skills and tell the
user no skill was an obvious fit, so you're broadcasting.
Meta queries ("what skills do I have?", "list my books") → answer
directly from the registry without fanning out.
Before Step 3, print a one-line plan:
Routing to: skill-a, skill-b — spawning N parallel subagents.
Step 3 — Fan out (single message, N parallel Agent calls)
In one message, emit one Agent tool call per matched skill. They run
in parallel; do not call them sequentially. Each subagent:
subagent_type: general-purpose
description: Consult <skill-name>
prompt: (template below)
Prompt template for each subagent — substitute <SKILL_NAME>,
<SKILL_DIR> (absolute path), and <QUERY>:
You are a focused domain expert acting as a single book-skill consultant.
Load ONLY this skill:
<SKILL_DIR>/SKILL.md
Read its concept map and topic index. If the question maps to specific
chapters, also read those files under <SKILL_DIR>/chapters/. Do not load
any other skill.
Answer this question using ONLY this skill's knowledge:
<QUERY>
Rules:
- 200-400 words.
- Cite framework names verbatim and reference chapter numbers when you
draw from them (e.g. "ch07-kerberoasting").
- If the question is outside this skill's domain, reply with a single
line: "OUT OF SCOPE — <skill-name> doesn't cover this." Do not invent.
- Do not hedge, do not summarise the whole book — answer the question.
Return only your answer; the orchestrator will synthesise across skills.
If a subagent fails, note the failure but continue with the others.
Step 4 — Synthesise
Collect every subagent report. Filter out any that returned
OUT OF SCOPE — …; keep the skill names for the footer. Then write
one unified essay that braids all remaining reports into a single
coherent answer — not a stack of per-skill sections. Shape:
## <Title that names the question's core>
<Opening paragraph — the direct answer in 3-5 sentences, already braided
across skills with inline citations like [bogle-common-sense-investing
ch3] or [forshaw-windows-security ch14].>
<Body — several paragraphs of unified narrative that integrate every
consulted skill's contribution. Cite inline at the point of each claim,
not in trailing per-skill blocks. Where two skills disagree, surface the
tension in-line ("Graham would call this speculation
[graham-intelligent-investor ch1]; Housel reframes it as a reasonable
bet on optimism [housel-psychology-of-money ch5]") rather than smoothing
it over.>
<Optional visualization — ASCII diagram, flowchart, comparison table, or
mermaid block — placed where it clarifies a structural concept. See
visualization rules below.>
<Closing paragraph — what the synthesis implies for the user's situation,
or what to read next.>
---
**Sources consulted:** `skill-a` · `skill-b` · `skill-c`
**Out of scope:** `skill-x` (filtered)
**Go deeper:** `skill-a` → `chapters/<book_number>-…md` · `skill-b` →
`chapters/<book_number>-…md` (e.g. `ch07-taxes-are-costs-too.md`,
`intro-day-zero.md`, `appendix-a-common-ports.md`)
Length scales with the question. Roughly the sum of the subagent
reports, not one report — accumulation is the point. But do not pad: if
one skill answered fully, a short essay is the correct output.
Step 5 — Emit the synthesis HTML artifact
After the chat response, follow Step 0.5 to render the synthesis
as HTML using the layout-2 template. Path:
artifacts/synthesis/YYYY-MM-DD-<query-slug>.html. Always create a
new file (every ask is unique). The HTML version uses the same
paragraphs, the same <span class="cite"> chips, the same .pull
quote, the same .ascii block; do not re-do the synthesis work — just
re-encode the text response into the layout-2 body template. End your
response with the artifact path so the user can open it.
Visualization rules
Add a visualization whenever it aids understanding of a structural
concept: an ordered process, a hierarchy, a comparison across 3+
items, a decision tree, a timeline, a state machine, or a tradeoff
matrix. Skip for purely factual or single-claim answers.
Prefer ASCII diagrams and markdown tables — they always
render in the terminal. Use mermaid blocks only for graphs/flows
the user will view in a renderer.
At most one visualization per answer, unless the question genuinely
spans multiple structural concepts.
Caption it with a one-line source attribution, e.g. "Kerberos
AS/TGS/AP exchange — adapted from [forshaw-windows-security ch14]".
Never invent structure not present in the consulted skills. A
visualization re-presents cited content; it is not new analysis.
Quality rules
Never read a domain SKILL.md yourself. That is the subagents' job.
You only read frontmatter (≤ 40 lines per skill) for routing.
Always fan out in parallel — one message with N Agent calls.
Sequential fan-out defeats the design.
Cite inline at the point of each claim, using the form
[skill-name <book_number>] — book_number is the book-native
label from chapters_manifest.json (ch07, intro, preface,
appendix-a). Never use the manifest index. No trailing per-skill
"perspectives" blocks — the essay is unified, citations live where
the claim does.
Don't invent across skills. If two skills disagree, surface the
disagreement; do not paper over it with a smoothed consensus.
Drop-in extensibility is sacred. Never hardcode skill names in
routing logic — always re-discover from the filesystem.
Exclude book-to-skill and self from routing, every time.
Visualize structural concepts. When the answer describes a
process, hierarchy, comparison, or tradeoff, include an ASCII
diagram, table, or mermaid block per the visualization rules in
Step 4.
