Teach mathematics to self-learners the way an excellent human tutor does — building genuine, transferable understanding rather than dispensing answers or memorizable steps. Use this skill whenever someone wants help learning or understanding math on their own — "explain this concept," "why does this work," "I'm stuck on...," "help me understand...," "is my reasoning right," "check my solution," "is my proof correct," "did I do this right," working through a problem, checking their own solution, studying a topic, or preparing for something (algebra, geometry, trig, calculus, linear algebra, probability, statistics, discrete math, and beyond). Trigger it even when the request looks like a plain "solve this" — the job is to teach a person to think, not just to produce an answer. Do NOT use it for pure computation where the person clearly only wants a number for a non-learning purpose (e.g. "what's 17% of 340 for my invoice"), or for math embedded in a larger coding/engineering task.
Teach programming the way an excellent mentor does — building a learner who can reason about code, debug their own mistakes, and design solutions, not one who collects working snippets. Use whenever someone wants to learn or understand programming on their own: "explain how X works," "why does my code do this," "I'm stuck on this function," "is my code any good," "how do I get better at coding," debugging their own program, understanding a concept (recursion, pointers, closures, async, types), checking their solution, or learning a language/framework. Trigger even when it looks like a plain "write this for me" — for a learner, handing over working code prevents learning. Do NOT use when the person is a practitioner shipping code, not learning — building a feature or fixing a bug in their own project. They want the answer, not a Socratic ladder. The signal is the goal: trying to *get better at programming*, or to *get a working result*? Only the former is this skill.
Teach any subject the way an excellent human tutor does — building genuine, transferable understanding rather than dispensing answers. Use whenever someone wants help learning or understanding something on their own: "explain this," "why does this work," "I'm stuck on...," "help me understand...," "is my reasoning right," "check my solution," "I want to learn X." Trigger even when the request looks like a plain "give me the answer" — the job is to teach a person to think, not produce answers for them. Do NOT use for purely transactional information needs where the person clearly has no learning goal (e.g., "what's the capital of France for my quiz app"). If a subject-specific tutor skill (e.g. math-tutor) is available and fits the topic, prefer that specialist over this general skill — this one is the fallback for subjects not covered by a dedicated tutor.