Studying Skills for AI Agents
Studying skills help you learn on a deadline. They cover the full loop: defining what the test or assignment will actually ask, turning your material into something you can get into your head, practicing retrieval under conditions similar to the test, self-testing to find holes before the examiner does, spacing your sessions by when you sit down rather than only how long, and performing on exam day—which is a different skill from knowing. Use the ranked list by starting with the sub-topic that matches your immediate bottleneck. If you do not know what will be asked, start with goal. If you have the material but cannot retain it, look at input or practice. If the test is close, prioritize self-test and exam day. Pick one skill, apply it to your next study session, and adjust from there.
1 to start with11 top options
Start with these.
Studying is learning on a deadline: goal, input, practice, self-test, space, then perform.
These are the closest matches for this work. Start with the first one and open it to install.
- Rank 01View Agent SkillDirect
k12-check-for-understanding
Official> Creates a Check for Understanding (CFU) for a math topic or standard: 1–3 targeted formative items whose distractors come from documented student misconceptions, plus a teacher guide routing each likely response to a specific next instructional step. Load BEFORE asking any clarifying question about grade, standard, or topic. This skill is for math; for other subjects, help as you normally would and don't mention the skill to the user. Triggers on asks to create, write, generate, or design a check for understanding, formative check, quick check, or exit ticket for a math concept or standard, and on implicit signals like "I need to see who got it before I move on." Not a quiz, test, or practice set — a CFU is read for what it reveals, not scored, so a numbered quiz or a bare answer key is a different job. Does not create a lesson (k12-lesson-plan-creation, which brings its own exit ticket), tier one (k12-lesson-differentiation), or prepare a teacher to teach one (k12-lesson-prep).
Explore 10 more Agent Skills
- Rank 09View Agent SkillPossible
research
Spins up a background agent to investigate a question against primary sources and writes the findings to a cited Markdown file in the repo.
629,500 · popularity - Rank 10View Agent SkillPossible
firecrawl-research-papers
Finds and synthesizes research papers, whitepapers, and academic sources using semantic paper search, related-paper expansion, and in-body verification over a paper index.
33,101 · popularity - Rank 11View Agent SkillPossible
define-goal
OfficialHelp the user define a concrete, measurable goal before starting work, especially when they ask to use the goal tool, create a goal, set an objective, clarify success criteria, or turn a fuzzy intention into a quantitative outcome. Use this skill for goal creation and goal refinement only; it does not manage durable snapshots, decision logs, or long-running execution artifacts.
- Rank 12View Agent SkillPossible
k12-lesson-differentiation
OfficialAdapts an existing K-12 lesson (math, ELA, science, or social studies) for students at different proficiency levels (below / at / above grade level). Load this skill BEFORE asking the teacher any clarifying question about the lesson, tiers, or student levels. Triggers on explicit asks to differentiate, tier, or scaffold a lesson, and on implicit signals like "my students are at different levels". Produces 1 teacher-facing differentiation plan + 3 student-ready tier documents as editable Word documents in a single output turn, rendered from one material-source JSON via bundled scripts (shared content is written once so tiers cannot drift). Uses the Learning Commons Knowledge Graph when connected; works without it. This skill adapts a lesson the teacher brings or names. Not for creating a new lesson from scratch — a new-lesson request that asks for differentiated or leveled materials is k12-lesson-plan-creation's job, one package. Not for grading, rubrics, assessment feedback, or quizzes.
- Rank 13View Agent SkillPossible
discernment-nudge
Official> After you give a substantive answer or draft that the user may act on — advice or recommendations, drafted artifacts such as goals, plans, pitches, proposals, or emails, estimates or projections, analysis or interpretation of data, factual claims they may rely on, or a multi-step argument — invoke this skill BEFORE finalizing your reply and then, if it applies, append 2-3 short follow-up questions, each tied to something specific in what you just produced, that help the user check key facts, probe the reasoning or assumptions, and notice missing context. Do this at most once per conversation. Skip it when the user asked a trivial how-to or simple lookup, wants a purely educational explanation, asked you only to format, convert, or assemble a file from content they provided, is writing code they will run, is doing creative writing or casual chat, or already asked you to double-check, cite, or review — the skill file explains these boundaries and the exact output format.
- Rank 14View Agent SkillPossible
k12-lesson-plan-creation
Official> Creates a lesson plan, student-facing materials, and observation template. Load this skill BEFORE asking the teacher any clarifying question about grade, subject, topic, standard, or timing. Use when a K-12 teacher needs a math, ELA, science, or social studies lesson built from scratch — even if grade, subject, or topic isn't yet stated. Do NOT load for grading, a rubric, assessment feedback, a quiz, or a standards lookup — answer those directly. Triggers on explicit requests (lesson plan, mini-lesson, unit plan, daily plan) and implicit teacher intent: "I'm teaching long division to 5th graders," "need to teach photosynthesis tomorrow." Core signal: teacher needs new instructional content created. A new lesson that asks for differentiated, tiered, or leveled materials is still ONE planning request — this skill produces those materials inside the lesson package; do not also invoke k12-lesson-differentiation. Not for differentiating an existing lesson (use k12-lesson-differentiation) or passage rewrites.
- Rank 15View Agent SkillPossible
k12-lesson-prep
Official> Helps a teacher prepare to teach an existing K-12 lesson (math / ELA / science / social studies) — a prep partner that thinks through the lesson's key student task with the teacher and leaves a short teacher-only prep note. Triggers on asks to internalize, prepare for, get ready to teach, or understand a lesson, including implicit ones ("help me get ready for tomorrow's lesson"), and right after another skill built a lesson, which it can follow. Not for building or adapting a lesson, grading, rubrics, assessment feedback, or generating quizzes or student-facing material, and not for single-fact lookups a sentence would answer ("what standard is this?", "how long is this lesson?").
- Rank 16View Agent SkillPossible
recipe-create-classroom-course
Creates a Google Classroom course and invites students via the gws CLI, then lists enrolled students.
28,391 · popularity - Rank 17View Agent SkillPossible
pptx
OfficialUse this skill any time a .pptx or .potx file is involved in any way — as input, output, or both. This includes: creating slide decks, pitch decks, or presentations; reading, parsing, or extracting text from any .pptx or .potx file (even if the extracted content will be used elsewhere, like in an email or summary); editing, modifying, or updating existing presentations; combining or splitting slide files; working with templates (.potx), layouts, speaker notes, or comments. Trigger whenever the user mentions \"deck,\" \"slides,\" \"presentation,\" or references a .pptx or .potx filename, regardless of what they plan to do with the content afterward. If a .pptx or .potx file needs to be opened, created, or touched, use this skill.
- Rank 18View Agent SkillPossible
xlsx
OfficialUse this skill any time a spreadsheet file is the primary input or output. This means any task where the user wants to: open, read, edit, or fix an existing .xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, .csv, or .tsv file (e.g., adding columns, computing formulas, formatting, charting, cleaning messy data); create a new spreadsheet from scratch or from other data sources; or convert between tabular file formats. Trigger especially when the user references a spreadsheet file by name or path — even casually (like \"the xlsx in my downloads\") — and wants something done to it or produced from it. Also trigger for cleaning or restructuring messy tabular data files (malformed rows, misplaced headers, junk data) into proper spreadsheets. The deliverable must be a spreadsheet file. Do NOT trigger when the primary deliverable is a Word document, HTML report, standalone Python script, database pipeline, or Google Sheets API integration, even if tabular data is involved.
What this topic covers
Each sub-topic groups Agent Skills for a specific situation.
- Goal
- What the test or assignment will actually ask.
- Input
- The material you have to get into your head.
- Practice
- Retrieval under similar conditions to the test.
- Self-test
- Find the holes before the examiner does.
- Spacing
- When you sit down, not only how long.
- Exam day
- Performance, which is a different skill from knowing.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the ranked list ordered?
- The list is ranked by observed search demand, with direct matches to the topic placed first. To keep the list useful, there is a cap on how many skills any single publisher can occupy.
- What should I do if I do not know what the test will ask?
- Start with a skill that addresses the goal sub-topic: what the test or assignment will actually ask. Without that, you risk studying material that will not be assessed.
- Why is exam day listed separately from knowing the material?
- Exam day is about performance, which is a different skill from knowing. A studying skill focused on exam day helps you execute under test conditions rather than just review content.
- How do spacing and self-testing fit into a study plan?
- Spacing is about when you sit down, not only how long, so it shapes your schedule. Self-testing finds the holes before the examiner does, so it should come before you consider a topic finished.
How to install an Agent Skill
Start with the first skill on this page. Claude Code reads a SKILL.md once it is in the skills directory:
- Claude Code — copy the SKILL.md for k12-check-for-understanding into ~/.claude/skills/k12-check-for-understanding/ for yourself, or .claude/skills/k12-check-for-understanding/ to share it with a project.
- From the registry — run npx skills add anthropics/k12-teacher-skills@k12-check-for-understanding.
- Or download k12-check-for-understanding from its source and place that SKILL.md in the directory above.
How to choose Check the source and the skill’s own instructions before you install. Official and Notable describe where a skill comes from.