The learn-anything skill: practice instead of a lecture

You've been nodding along about DNS for two years. You own a domain and you can't point it at anything. Every explanation you find is either a definition list for people who already know, or 4,000 words that leave you with nothing to actually do.

The learn-anything skill fixes the level problem first, then the nothing-to-do problem. It works out where you really are by naming something adjacent you probably already know and checking. Then it draws the shape of the topic in under 120 words before any detail, teaches the five ideas that carry most of it, and finishes with a practice ladder: something you can do in 15 minutes, something in an hour with your own stuff, and a small complete thing you could show someone by the end of the evening.

It's one of the 55 free skills in our freeskills repo. It works on anything, technical or not.

A skill is just a folder Claude Code reads and turns into a slash command. Copy this one across with three lines:

Open a fresh Claude Code session and the command is there. That's the whole install. No API keys, no config.

Type /learn-anything and name the topic. It asks three questions in one message: what you already know, why you're learning it now, and how deep you need to go. Enough to hold a conversation, enough to make decisions, or enough to do it yourself. Then it names one adjacent thing you probably know and checks, because people underrate themselves and the self-assessment is usually wrong.

Expect it to stop and wait. After the map it asks whether the shape makes sense before it fills anything in. If you say no, it redraws the map instead of explaining harder. It also splits the five ideas across two passes with a real check question in the middle, so getting one wrong is useful rather than embarrassing.

A good first result: a file in ~/learning/ with the shape, the five ideas, the three rungs, the one wrong belief beginners in this topic carry for months, and the next question worth asking. There's an empty Notes to self section at the bottom for what surprised you and what broke. Do rung 1 while it's fresh. It's 15 minutes.

Say the specific thing you can't do. That's what calibrates the whole session.

Ask about marketing and you'll get a survey of nothing. Give it the situation and let it cut the topic down.

When there's a date on it, say the date. It changes how much ladder you get and how fast.

Here's the say-it-out-loud version of what the skill does and why it's worth an evening.

1. 1Hook: there's a brand-new free Claude skill that takes you from nodding along about a topic to a small finished thing you built with it tonight.
2. 2Mechanism: you name the topic, and it asks three questions to find your real level, including the boring one about why you want this now. Then it gives you the shape of the subject before any detail, the five ideas that carry most of it, and a practice ladder with three rungs, fifteen minutes, one hour, one evening. It finishes by naming the misconception that catches almost everyone at your level.
3. 3Transformation: you finish the evening with one real thing you can do, saved in a file you come back to. The topic stops being a word you nod at.
4. 4Close: costs nothing, one of 55 in the repo. When rung 3 breaks at 11pm and you want someone to ask, that's Claude Code Club, $9 a month. Link below.

Pick the topic you've been quietly avoiding, run the skill, and do rung 1 before you shut the laptop. Fifteen minutes of contact with the thing beats another hour of reading about it.