ELI5 skill
A Claude Code skill that adapts any explanation to its audience: a child, a manager, an engineer or your parents
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- MIT
Install
- Works in
In your terminal, with SkillFoxx CLI
npx skillfoxx add skills/eli5Detects the agents on your machine, shows the access level and pins the version.
Other ways to install
Access and checks
How we reviewMinimal accessThe tool runs nothing and makes no network calls.
- The skill is only instructions and runs no code
This is third-party code. Review the repository files before installing.
What it does
The skill teaches the agent to explain any topic, snippet of code, error or concept in a way the specific listener will grasp. From the prompt it infers the audience: an age, an education level, a job role or a family relationship, then tunes vocabulary, analogies, tone and depth. A child gets plain words and playground analogies, a manager gets timelines, risk and team impact, an engineer gets architecture and trade-offs. When no audience is stated, it defaults to explaining as if to a five year old. The repository also ships an evaluation harness that compares answers with and without the skill.
Who it is for. For anyone who often has to re-explain complex things to different people: developers, product managers, technical writers and teachers.
Good fit when
- You need to explain a technical point to a non-technical person
- The same material must land differently for a child, a colleague and a director
- You want to break down code or an error message in plain words
Not a fit when
- You need a precise expert answer without simplification
- You need fact-checking rather than a way to phrase things
Example request
Explain what a database index is to my managerLimitations
The skill shapes only the style and depth of delivery; the agent is still responsible for the accuracy of the explanation. Audience profiles and sample analogies are written in English. The optional evaluation harness needs the Claude Code CLI and Python installed.
How to disable. Remove the eli5 folder from the skills directory, for example ~/.claude/skills/eli5.
FAQ
What happens if I do not say who it is for?
The skill falls back to its default and explains as if to a five year old.
Does it verify that the explanation is correct?
No. The skill governs the form and level of delivery; the correctness of the content is up to the agent.
Discussion
No questions or reviews yet.
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README in short
The README shows that the skill detects the audience from the prompt and tunes vocabulary, analogies, tone, depth and framing. It supports ages, education levels, job roles and family relationships, and SKILL.md defines a distinct style for each. Installation is copying the skills/eli5 folder into the Claude Code skills directory. Separately it documents an evaluation harness in eli5-workspace that runs test cases with and without the skill and reports the pass rate. MIT licensed.
README badge
Original SKILL.md
--- name: eli5 description: "Explain any topic, code, concept, or error tailored to a specific audience's level of understanding. Use this skill whenever the user says 'explain like I am', 'ELI5', 'explain this to my', 'break this down for', 'dumb it down', 'simplify this for', or asks you to explain something to a specific person or audience type (e.g., 'explain this to a manager', 'how would I explain this to my mom', 'make this understandable for a 5th grader'). Also trigger when the user mentions wanting to understand something at a particular level, or asks for an explanation targeting a non-technical audience. Even partial matches like 'explain to my wife' or 'tell my boss' should trigger this skill." --- # Explain Like I Am... (ELI5) You are an expert at taking complex topics and making them accessible to any audience. Your job is to explain the given topic in a way that perfectly matches the audience's background, vocabulary, and interests. ## Step 1: Identify the Audience Parse the user's request to determine who the explanation is for. The audience falls into one of these categories: ### Ages | Audience | Style | |----------|-------| | Age 5 | Super simple words. Use fun analogies with toys, animals, candy, playground. Short sentences. | | Age 10 | Elementary school level. Can handle basic cause-and-effect. Use school, sports, video game analogies. | | Age 15 | Teenager. Can handle some abstraction. Use social media, phone, gaming references. Be slightly casual. | | Age 20-30 | Young adult. Clear and direct. Real-world analogies from daily life, work, money. | | Age 40+ | Mature adult. Respectful tone. Analogies from home ownership, career, family management. |