# Myelinate documentation

> Use Myelinate in any AI chat or install it as a plugin for Claude Code, the Claude apps or Codex. Choose the right skill, bring course materials and notes, and understand its evidence and limits.

Project page: https://dbaney.com/projects/myelinate/

## Use it in any chat

No installation is needed. Paste this into an assistant that can open links, in chat or voice:

```text
Use the Myelinate learning skill: https://github.com/baney75/myelinate - read SKILL.md and follow it to teach me.
```

The assistant fetches `SKILL.md` and follows it. If yours cannot browse, install the folder or paste `SKILL.md` itself.

## Install

Myelinate is one plugin for Claude Code, the Claude apps (claude.ai and desktop) and Codex. Every skill ships with the references and templates it uses, so it works the same wherever it is installed.

### Claude Code

```text
/plugin marketplace add baney75/myelinate
/plugin install myelinate@baney75
```

Every skill loads on its own when your request fits it, so you never have to name one. The plugin has no fixed version, so it updates when the repository does: turn on auto-update for the `baney75` marketplace under `/plugin`, or run `claude plugin update myelinate@baney75`.

### Claude apps

In **Customize > Plugins**, choose **Add > Add marketplace > Add from a repository**, enter `baney75/myelinate`, and install **myelinate**. Or download `myelinate-plugin.zip` from the latest release and use **Add > Upload plugin**. If you installed an older Myelinate as a skill, remove it so only one copy is listed.

### Codex

The repository is also a Codex plugin marketplace. Add it in Codex, or link each skill folder into `~/.agents/skills`:

```sh
git clone https://github.com/baney75/myelinate.git
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
for d in myelinate/skills/*/; do ln -s "$PWD/$d" ~/.agents/skills/"$(basename "$d")"; done
```

### Other assistants

Paste the link above, or give the assistant `SKILL.md` as instructions. When it can browse, it fetches the rest at the pinned version.

## Start a lesson

Give it a concept, what you already know and how much time you have:

```text
Use $myelinate to teach me limiting reactants.
I understand moles, but I keep choosing the wrong reactant.
I have 20 minutes. Explain first, then help me practice.
```

For a course, bring the materials:

```text
Use $myelinate with my study guide and notes.
Map the tested objectives, teach my weak spots, and give me
new problems in the format my course uses.
```

On the first session Myelinate asks how you learn: pace, chunk size and what is hard. It saves that profile to your assistant's memory or a file you keep, only with your agreement, and it keeps adjusting to what actually helps you. Sharing a learning condition is optional and never required.

## Slash commands and opt-outs

In the plugin you can force a skill with a slash command. `/myelinate:myelinate` opens the router, and `/myelinate:tutor`, `/myelinate:code`, `/myelinate:assignment` and the rest open a skill by name. `/myelinate:quiz <topic>` drills one topic and `/myelinate:review` runs what's due.

Claude Code adds three things the chat apps can't run:

- **Spaced review across sessions.** Ask Myelinate to keep your progress and it saves a private record at `~/.myelinate/learner.json`. Each new session then starts knowing which reviews are due. Without a record, nothing changes.
- **An answer-key agent** that solves the problem without seeing your answer, so the verdict can't drift toward what you said.
- **The Myelinate output style** (choose it in `/config`) for learning while you code: Claude does the engineering and leaves you one decision at a time.

Tell Claude, or save to its memory, where you don't want Myelinate: "don't tutor me on my coding projects" or "just answer my Spanish questions". It respects that scope, and a slash command still works when you want it. Ordinary coding, building and work requests don't trigger it in the first place.

## The aim

Socrates called himself a midwife. He didn't hand people conclusions. He helped them bring out their own thinking and tested whether it held up. Myelinate works the same way. It asks before it tells, and on graded work it coaches you to do it yourself instead of doing it for you, so you leave more capable and not more dependent.

## The skills

`SKILL.md` is a router. It reads what you want and hands it to one of fifteen skills.

| Skill | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| tutor | For a class you are enrolled in: gathers your syllabus, study guide, notes and textbook, then teaches live in chat or voice, one step at a time, with rendered diagrams and 3D models. |
| teach | For learning that isn't for a class: designs the course for a personal goal, work skill or project, then teaches it. |
| assignment | Coaches homework, lab reports, essays and coding assignments so you can do them yourself. |
| project | Learn while you build something of your own, only when you ask. It stays out of ordinary coding. |
| code | Learn code you have to own: an inherited repository, a pull request to review, a library or an error. It maps the code, traces one real behavior with a prediction first, runs it for the verdict and leaves you the change that carries the idea. |
| assess | Tests written to the objectives, graded honestly against a key and rubric, with a gradebook and optional bonus work. |
| course-project | Turns a big goal into a university-level course researched against accredited syllabi, to run as a Claude Project. |
| notes | Reads your own notes (Google Drive, OneDrive, Notion, Obsidian or photos of paper) to see how you are grasping it, flags misconceptions and slide-copying, and turns them into practice. |
| lab | Interactive learning labs and simulations as web pages. |
| print | Printable study guides built for active recall, practice tests with separate answer keys, blank diagrams and worksheets. |
| flashcards | Cards ready for Quizlet, Anki or Obsidian. |
| memory-hooks | Research-backed mnemonics for material that will not stick. |
| study-plan | Works back from the exam date with spaced relearning, practice and sleep. With your agreement it can add reminders to a calendar you have connected. |
| find-media | Finds diagrams, photos and videos and notes their licenses. |
| verify | Adversarial accuracy review before high-stakes material ships. |

Myelinate can also build crafted, interactive figures of real lab apparatus and working machines, so you can watch a setup or mechanism work before you meet it.

## What to expect from a lesson

| You say | Myelinate gives |
| --- | --- |
| "I don't get it." | A clear explanation, a worked example and the limits of the analogy. |
| "I think I know it." | A question you answer before seeing the solution, with specific feedback. |
| "I can do that example." | A changed application to check you can choose and use the idea. |
| "My exam is next week." | Course-aligned practice and a realistic review queue. |
| "Make me something I can study." | A source-linked study pack with an explained answer key. |

## Evidence and limits

Retrieval, spacing, feedback and worked examples have substantial research behind them, and their effects depend on the task, learner, timing and comparison. The repository's evidence ledger links each source with its scope and limits.

Myelinate cannot force permanent memory or guarantee a grade. Its full learning efficacy has not been established, and the name is a metaphor, not a claim that it changes your myelin. A suggested review time is not a scheduled notification unless you agreed to a calendar reminder and it was actually created. Learner health information and course records stay out of public outputs.

## Contribute

Useful contributions include a reproducible tutoring failure, a better-supported source, an accessibility fix or a clearer exercise. Use fictional or consented, de-identified examples.

```sh
python3 scripts/check.py          # package integrity and local links
python3 scripts/check.py --sync   # regenerate SKILL.md and each skill's bundled files
claude plugin validate .          # plugin manifests and skills
```