| name | course-study |
| description | Turn a course's materials (slides, a topic list, or a course name) into complete-coverage, Feynman-explained, exam-ready revision notes. Use to study/revise a course or build an exam cheat sheet: "revise these slides", "$course-study". Do NOT use to do the user's graded homework for submission. |
| license | MIT |
| model | claude-sonnet-4-6 |
| user-invocable | true |
| metadata | {"version":"3.0.1","author":"claude-code","domains":["education","study","exam-prep","learning"]} |
Course Study v3.0
A lean four-phase workflow that turns a course into complete-coverage,
Feynman-explained, exam-ready revision notes. The #1 guarantee is
completeness (every topic covered, nothing silently dropped); the defining
pedagogy is the Feynman concept block (plain-language capsule first +
mandatory worked example).
Primary output: revision-notes.md. Optional: a one-line-per-entry
quick-reference.md cheat sheet, and PDF export (CJK/bilingual aware).
This file is a thin orchestrator — load the rules/ module for each phase.
Pipeline
Phase 0 Intake (single exchange)
├── PDF slides → Phase 1 (extract via /pdf skill)
├── Topic list → Phase 1 (parse into the checklist)
└── Course name → search standard syllabus → Phase 1
Phase 1 Cover → extract ALL content (page-aligned) + EMIT the coverage checklist (the ledger)
Phase 2 Distill → revision-notes.md in Feynman block order; RECONCILE against the Phase-1 checklist
Phase 3 Supplement (OPTIONAL, light) → ≤~10 sourced targets for genuine gaps / thin concepts
VERIFY/REPORT → coverage reconciled, examples present, sources traced; emit files
Each phase ends with a one-line checkpoint; proceed on no-objection. Never
spread intake across multiple messages.
- Phase 0 — Intake: load
rules/phase-intake.md. One exchange: input type,
rough page count → scale tier, output language, exam date, priority topics,
output folder; detect web access silently.
- Phase 1 — Cover: load
rules/phase-cover.md. Extract every concept
page-aligned (PDF via the /pdf skill; or parse the topic list; or build the
outline from a searched standard syllabus). Emit the coverage checklist
enumerating every topic — the completeness ledger Phase 2 reconciles against.
- Phase 2 — Distill (main deliverable): load
rules/phase-distill.md. Write
revision-notes.md in backbone order, each concept in the Feynman block
order below, with cross-topic bridges. Then reconcile the notes against
the Phase-1 checklist — flag and fill any missing topic before finalizing.
- Phase 3 — Supplement (optional, light): load
rules/phase-supplement.md
only for genuine gaps / thin concepts. Cap ≤~10 targets. Dual web / no-web.
The Feynman concept block (Phase 2 — mandatory order)
Every concept is written in this exact 5-part order, plain-language capsule
FIRST (never lead with the formal definition): (1) capsule → (2)
intuition → (3) formal treatment → (4) worked example (mandatory for
every non-trivial concept) → (5) connections + common misconception.
The full per-part prose lives verbatim in rules/phase-distill.md (Step 2).
Full template and depth calibration: rules/phase-distill.md and
rules/templates.md — load them in Phase 2.
Global Rules (controls)
- PDF-only input via /pdf. ALL PDF reading — including scanned / image-only
PDFs — goes through the
/pdf skill. NEVER raw file I/O or Python on PDFs.
Non-PDF inputs (PPTX/DOCX/images) are converted via /pdf first.
- Completeness invariant. Phase 2 notes are reconciled against the Phase-1
coverage checklist before finalizing. Any extracted/checklist topic missing
from the notes is flagged and filled — never silently dropped or skipped.
- Worked-example invariant. Every non-trivial concept gets a concrete worked
example. A pure-definition concept with no feasible example gets the
plain-language capsule + a short note (e.g. "definitional — no worked example
applies") — never a fabricated/forced example.
- No fabrication. Offline supplements are marked
[Standard curriculum knowledge]; ZERO invented URLs / papers / authors / slide content. Uncertain
claims are omitted or flagged [Uncertain — verify before exam]. On the
course-name path, never fabricate a specific lecture's slide content.
- Source traceability. Every note traces to its source location: page (PDF,
Lecture X, p. Y) or section (topic list / syllabus). Never lose it.
- Honor the source. A slide that contradicts standard curriculum is
flagged as a discrepancy (show the slide's claim + the standard view) —
NOT silently "corrected" to the textbook version.
- Scale guard. Size picks the tier — page count (PDF) or topic count
(topic list / syllabus): large inputs (>~400 pages, or >~150 topics) → split,
recommend per-module runs and batch; the checklist spans the whole course so
nothing is silently dropped across batches.
- Scope guard. Produce revision material, not answers to graded
assessments. Do NOT solve / do the user's actual homework or exam questions
for submission; offer how to approach them as a study topic instead.
- Output discipline. Dense notes, no padding.
quick-reference.md (if
produced) is one line per entry, ordered by exam relevance — no prose.
Completeness of coverage is non-negotiable — never drop a topic to be
brief. If the user wants brevity, satisfy it via depth calibration (more
topics at minimal capsule depth) and/or the quick-reference.md cheat sheet,
never by omitting topics.
- Track progress. Use a TodoList for which lectures/topics are processed.
Reference Files
| File | When to load |
|---|
rules/phase-intake.md | Phase 0 — single-exchange intake, scale tier, web detection. |
rules/phase-cover.md | Phase 1 — page-aligned extraction + the coverage checklist (ledger). |
rules/phase-distill.md | Phase 2 — Feynman blocks, bridges, the coverage reconciliation step. |
rules/phase-supplement.md | Phase 3 — optional light supplement, dual web/no-web, ≤~10 cap. |
rules/templates.md | Writing rules + the Feynman concept-block & quick-reference templates. |
rules/subject-coverage.md | Course-name input & standard-syllabus search; checklist baseline. |
rules/pdf-export.md | Load only when PDF output is requested (pandoc CJK/bilingual config). |
rules/anti-patterns.md | The consolidated do-NOT table (negative form of the Global Rules). |
rules/changelog.md | Version history. |
Anti-Patterns
The Global Rules above are the positive invariants; their negative-form
restatement — the full do-NOT table (lead-with-definition, skip-worked-example,
fabricate-example, skip-reconciliation, silently-fix-slide, drop-topic-for-brevity,
Python-on-PDF, invent-URLs, prose-in-cheat-sheet, build-Q&A-bank) — lives in
rules/anti-patterns.md. Each phase file reinforces the ones relevant to it.
