# Learning doc skill

> A free Claude skill that turns any topic into one offline learning doc: plain-word lessons, guess-first questions, spaced review and a study plan.

- Canonical page: https://inspectedbymarko.com/skills/learning-docs/
- Site: Inspected by Marko (https://inspectedbymarko.com/)
- Last updated: 28 October 2026

## Learn with AI. Get tested without it.

Tell it what you want to learn, your minutes a day and your deadline. It builds one file that teaches in plain words, tests you as you go and brings each idea back before you forget it.

- [Get the skill](https://inspectedbymarko.com/skills/learning-docs/#free-skills)
- [Try a lesson](https://inspectedbymarko.com/skills/learning-docs/#lesson)

One skill · eight guides · three scripts · free, MIT License

Lesson 1 of the example course in the zip, printed as a workbook. Words as written; the circle is mine. The page: Why the Moon changes shape, Lesson 1 · 12 min, “Where moonlight comes from”. Guess first: Where does the Moon’s light come from? The circled answer, in my hand: “wrong guess. still helps.” Stamped: Due tomorrow, 4 review cards.

Handwritten under the buttons: “no app. no account. one file.”

## 01 Once isn’t learning.

In July I had about two weeks to learn security and databases for a hiring process. AI read 24 interview reports and built me a study folder. On day eight, the CEO ran the hardest round. I couldn’t explain things I had read that week.

My question bank · PostgreSQL: `VACUUM vs VACUUM FULL in PostgreSQL?` (starred: a real interview question; answer folded under). Handwritten: “seen once.”

One topic · CSP:
- Week 1: Studied it.
- Day 8: Fumbled it.
- Day 10: Drilled it. The CTO round held.
- Six weeks later: Tested myself.
- Gone.

> “VACUUM was in my question bank, starred as a real interview question. I had seen it once. Once isn’t learning.”

July 2026. The company and every person stay unnamed. The day after the CTO round, the CEO said no.

What the research says:

- Receipt · Learning a new library with AI (29 Jan 2026): **50% vs 67%**. 52 mostly junior engineers learned a new Python library, then took a quiz without AI. Those who learned with AI averaged 50%; by hand, 67%. They saved about two minutes, not significant. Source: [Anthropic, Shen and Tamkin, “How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills”](https://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skills).
- Receipt · Recall under stress (25 Nov 2016): **11 vs 7 items**. Under stress, people who had tested themselves recalled about 11 of 30 items. People who had reread them recalled about 7. Source: [Smith, Floerke and Thomas, Science, via Tufts University](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161124160426.htm).

Handwritten: “reading it felt like learning. recall is what stays.”

## 02 It sizes the course to your week.

It asks your minutes a day, your study days and your deadline. Before it writes a lesson, it works out how many fit, and tells you when your topic doesn’t.

A3 · your plan, sized (Marker on paper · the skill’s own math). The skill asks: 3. Minutes a day? 4. Days a week? 5. Deadline, and start date? It also asks your goal, what you know already, what makes learning click, your job or hobby for the examples, your materials, and whether to research online. Say “go” and it uses its defaults.

Shown: 20 minutes, Monday to Friday, from 2 Nov 2026 with a deadline four weeks later. Its answer, from `scripts/plan.py capacity --minutes 20 --days 5 --start 2026-11-02 --deadline 2026-11-30`:

| What | Answer |
| --- | --- |
| Study sessions | 20 |
| Lessons that fit | 15 |
| Minutes a lesson | 15 |
| Each session | 5 min of review cards, then 15 min new |
| Words a lesson | 1,070 to 1,390 |
| Practice and catch-up | 3 |
| Final check and light review | 2 |
| Total | 6.7 hours |

20 study sessions, Mon 2 Nov 2026 to Fri 27 Nov 2026: 15 to learn, 3 to practise and catch up, a final check and a light review.

Handwritten on the sheet: “a catch-up every four. real weeks slip.”

The skill’s sizing rule, scripts/plan.py, running in your browser: the same answers as the script on 210 test cases. The real plan dates every lesson it writes.

## 03 It asks before it tells.

Every lesson opens with a question you can’t answer yet. A wrong guess, then the answer, helps you remember. Try lesson 1 of the example course that ships in the zip.

Why each part is there:
1. **Guess first.** Trying to answer before you learn it improves memory of the answer, even when the guess is wrong.
2. **One idea, one example.** Working memory holds about four new things. So one idea at a time, with an example from your world.
3. **Check yourself.** Pulling it out of memory beats reading it again. Wrong answers explain why.
4. **Review cards.** Get a card right and it comes back after 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, then 64 days. Miss it and it comes back tomorrow.

Why the Moon changes shape, Lesson 1 · Where moonlight comes from.

**Guess first.** You have not learned this yet. Guess anyway: a wrong guess followed by the answer helps you remember.

Where does the Moon’s light come from?

A. The Moon glows by itself, like a lamp. (Not quite. The Moon is cold rock. It makes no light of its own.)
B. Sunlight bounces off the Moon and reaches our eyes. (Correct. Right. The Moon only bounces back light from the Sun.)
C. Light from cities on Earth lights it up. (Not quite. City lights are far too weak to light up something so far away.)
D. Starlight lights it up. (Not quite. Stars are so far away that their light is much too faint.)

**The Moon is a mirror, not a lamp.** The Moon is a huge ball of grey rock. It makes no light at all. We see it for one reason: sunlight hits it and bounces back toward Earth. In other words, the Moon reflects sunlight.

Example: Think of a bike reflector at night. It seems to glow when a car passes. But it only shines while the car’s headlights hit it. The Moon works the same way, with the Sun as the headlights.

**Check yourself.** It is night where you live, and the Sun has set. Why can you still see the Moon?

A. The Sun still shines on the Moon, and the Moon reflects that light to you. (Correct. Yes. It is night where you stand, but the Moon is still in sunlight.)
B. The Moon stores sunlight during the day and gives it off at night. (Not quite. The Moon stores no light. Like a mirror, it reflects light the moment the light arrives.)
C. At night, the Moon makes its own light. (Not quite. The Moon never makes its own light, day or night.)

**Key idea:** At any moment, the Sun lights exactly one half of the Moon. Always half. Never more, never less.

**Your review cards.** These join your review deck when you mark this lesson as done. Test yourself now: read the front, answer in your head, then flip. Front: “Where does the Moon’s light come from?” Back: “From the Sun. Sunlight bounces off the Moon to our eyes. The Moon makes no light of its own.”

Lesson 1 of the example course, words as written. In the real doc your answers and cards are saved in your browser, offline.

## 04 The rules: Five things it won’t do.

Each one feels like studying and works worse, or makes a course look bigger than it is. The skill would rather hand you a shorter one.

Rules · they hold even when you ask (From SKILL.md):

1. **Never: Sort you into a learning style.** Teaching to a style didn’t help in the studies built to test it. It asks what makes learning click, gives you more of that, and still tests you.
2. **Never: Make you reread.** Rereading and highlighting do little on their own. Every lesson makes you pull it out of memory instead.
3. **Never: Cram it in.** When your topic doesn’t fit your time, it says so with numbers, and cuts to what your goal needs.
4. **Never: Teach what it can’t trace.** Only what a source it read says, or knowledge that doesn’t change. Facts that change carry a month and year.
5. **Never: Sell you something.** Your doc carries a favicon, one small logo and one line: “Made with the free learning doc skill from Inspected by Marko.” Nothing in the lessons.

Handwritten by the last rule: “that’s the whole ad.”

Why it refuses:

- Receipt · Learning styles (2008): “There is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.” Source: [Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork, Psychological Science in the Public Interest](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26162104/).
- Receipt · Feeling of learning (2019): “Students in the active classroom learn more, but they feel like they learn less.” Source: [Deslauriers and colleagues, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116).

The doc says it too, on its start page: “Review cards come back after a day, then after longer and longer gaps. Remembering after a gap feels harder than rereading. That effort is what makes it last.”

## 05 Get the skill: Want to learn it and keep it?

One skill, eight guides, three scripts and an example course, in one zip. Claude builds the doc; you study it offline, on any device. Read every file before you run it. I would.

```text
learning-doc-skill.zip
└─ inspected-by-m-learning-docs/
   ├─ LICENSE  (MIT, word for word)
   ├─ NOTICE.md  (fonts and other notices)
   ├─ README.md  (how to install it)
   ├─ SKILL.md  (the method, step by step)
   ├─ references/  (8 guides)
   │  ├─ intake.md  (what it asks you first)
   │  ├─ research-and-sources.md  (how it reads and checks)
   │  ├─ study-plan.md  (how it fits your time)
   │  ├─ doc-components.md  (the parts of a lesson)
   │  ├─ writing-plain-language.md  (how it keeps it simple)
   │  ├─ learning-science.md  (the research, rated)
   │  ├─ questions-and-cards.md  (how it tests you)
   │  └─ bibliography.md  (every study it rests on)
   ├─ scripts/  (Python 3)
   │  ├─ plan.py  (fits lessons to your time)
   │  ├─ build_doc.py  (checks and builds the file)
   │  └─ readability.py  (flags long sentences)
   └─ assets/  (page engine, fonts, example)
```

- **Works in:** Claude Code, or the Claude app with code execution on. Web search on if it should research the topic.
- **Needs:** Python 3 for the scripts. Nothing else.
- **Yours to:** Copy, change and share, under the MIT License.

How to get it: enter your email in the form on the page, “Get the learning skill.” ([Email me the skill](https://inspectedbymarko.com/skills/learning-docs/#free-skills)). The zip comes by email (inspected-by-m-learning-docs 1.0.0, 28 October 2026).

Free to copy, change and share, under the MIT License. It comes with no warranty: read a skill before you run it.

Box not ticked? You get the skill and nothing else, and your address is deleted after 30 days.

[How I use your email](https://inspectedbymarko.com/privacy/#what-we-collect)

## 06 Work with me: Weeks to learn. Days to launch.

If your app has paying users and a raise or a big customer coming, I inspect what AI built: who can see whose data, keys, logins, speed and code. Builds are quoted on a 20-minute call. I do 80 to 90% of the work with my AI skills. My team polishes and tests.

- **The inspection:** from $3,500 (USD · starting price). One app or repository · report pack in 5 working days. [See what the inspection covers](https://inspectedbymarko.com/work-with-me/#scope)
- **Builds:** Quoted on a call. MVP builds · rebuilds · fix sprints after an inspection. [Ask about a build](https://inspectedbymarko.com/call/?need=build#pick-a-time)
- [Request a 20-minute call](https://inspectedbymarko.com/call/): Free, 20 minutes, no code access. For apps with paying users.
- [Not ready? Watch the inspections on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@InspectedByMarko)

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