Predict before you see
You commit to a guess before the explanation. Even a wrong guess gives the answer somewhere to land.
Richland, Kornell & Kao, J. Exp. Psychol.: Applied 2009An open-source skill suite for learning
Understand it.Retrieve it.Use it.
Myelinate turns a capable AI assistant into a tutor that asks before it tells, learns how you learn, teaches with rendered diagrams and 3D models, builds courses, labs, cards and printable tests from your own materials, and is honest, not agreeable.
Install as a Claude Code plugin or skill folder, or try the earlier limiting-reactants lesson.
- MIT licensed
- Plugin for Claude Code, claude.ai and Codex, 15 skills
- Zero-config
- Plain Markdown skills
- No API keys or hosted service
tutor · predict first
Illustrative
You
Teach me limiting reactants. I keep picking the wrong one.
Myelinate
Before I explain anything, make a prediction.
2 H₂ + O₂ → 2 H₂O
You have 4 mol H₂ and 1 mol O₂. Which runs out first?
A scripted sample of the tutor’s pattern, not a live model. Your choice stays in this page.
00 No install
Use it in any chat. Paste this.
Paste the line into an assistant that can open links, in chat or voice mode. It reads SKILL.md and follows it.
If your assistant can’t browse, install the folder or paste SKILL.md itself.
Use the Myelinate learning skill: https://github.com/baney75/myelinate — read SKILL.md and follow it to teach me.01 How it routes
One entry point. Fifteen specialists.
Ask in plain language. The router reads what you are after — understanding, a lab, cards, a plan — and hands the request, with your context, to the skill built for it. Skills hand off to each other, so a course can end in a printable practice test and high-stakes material can pass through verify before it ships. Installed as a Claude Code plugin, each skill loads on its own when your request fits it, and stays out of the way of ordinary coding.
- tutorYour enrolled class, taught live in chat or voice.
- teachDesigns and teaches a course for your own goals.
- assignmentCoaches graded work instead of doing it for you.
- projectLearn while you build, only when you ask.
- assessTests, honest grading, gradebook, bonus work.
- course-projectA full university-level course as a Claude Project.
- notesReads your notes, flags gaps, makes practice.
- labBuilds interactive simulations as web pages.
- printPrintable tests, study guides, answer keys, diagrams.
- flashcardsCards ready for Quizlet, Anki or Obsidian.
- memory-hooksResearch-backed mnemonics for what won’t stick.
- study-planExam clock, spacing, sleep, opt-in reminders.
- find-mediaDiagrams, photos and videos, with licensing noted.
- verifyAdversarial review before high-stakes material ships.
- codeLearn code you have to own, when you ask.
Each skill is a Markdown file you can read in full. Nothing runs in the background, and nothing is sent anywhere your assistant does not already send it.
02 What it does differently
Built on how people actually learn, not on how chatbots like to talk.
The same AI can help or hurt. What decides it is behavior: who does the thinking, how answers are revealed, and whether the facts were checked first.
−17%
Exam scores for high-school students who practiced with an answer-giving GPT-4 chat, compared with students who had no AI. A version with tutoring guardrails largely avoided the harm.
Bastani et al., PNAS 2025≈0.6 SD
Larger learning gains, in less time, for an AI tutor built on pre-worked solutions and step-by-step reveals, compared with an in-class active-learning lesson (Harvard physics, N = 194).
Kestin et al., Scientific Reports 2025These studies tested specific tutors in specific courses. They shaped Myelinate’s design; they did not measure Myelinate, and its own effect on learning has not been established.
Retrieval, not rereading
Sessions close by pulling ideas back from memory, mixed with look-alikes, instead of a tidy summary to skim.
Roediger & Karpicke, Psychol. Sci. 2006; Dunlosky et al., PSPI 2013One step at a time
The tutor never solves your problem on the first turn. It reveals a step, asks for the next, and stays short.
Bastani et al., PNAS 2025Feedback that explains
A wrong answer gets a hint first, then the specific gap and why, then a fresh problem to use it on.
Butler & Roediger, Mem. Cognit. 2008Worked examples, then fading
New ideas start from a worked parallel example. As you succeed, the worked steps drop away until you solve alone.
Renkl & Atkinson, Educ. Psychol. 2003Spaced relearning
Study plans work back from the exam date, revisit material across days, and protect the sleep that consolidation needs.
Cepeda et al., Psychol. Bull. 2006; Dunlosky et al., PSPI 2013Honest, not agreeable
It won’t confirm a wrong answer, inflate praise, or cave when you push back on a correct correction. It changes its mind on evidence.
Sharma et al., arXiv:2310.13548 2023Remembers how you learn
The first session asks a few questions about pace, chunk size and what’s hard. Later sessions start from that profile.
Design choice, not a study findingReviewed before it ships
Answer keys are worked before tutoring starts, and high-stakes material gets an adversarial review for accuracy and currency.
Kestin et al., Sci. Rep. 202503 Example prompts
Say what you need. It finds the right skill.
Bring your syllabus, notes or study guide when you have them. Missing materials never block a first lesson.
Learn a concept tutor
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.Prepare for an exam tutor → study-plan
Use myelinate with my syllabus and study guide. Exam 2 is Friday. Map what is tested, find my weak spots, and plan the days between now and then.Build something to explore lab
Use myelinate to build me a lab where I can change oxygen partial pressure and watch hemoglobin saturation shift. Ask me to predict before each change.Make it stick flashcards → memory-hooks
Use myelinate to turn these chapter 12 notes into Anki cards. Then give me memory hooks for the cards I miss twice.See it find-media
Use myelinate to find a clear diagram and a short video on the brachial plexus. Tell me the license for each so I can use them in my notes.Check the lesson verify
Use myelinate to verify this explanation of the Krebs cycle before you teach it to me. Flag anything wrong, outdated or unsourced.Set up a course from uploads tutor
Use myelinate. Here’s my syllabus PDF and slide deck — set up the course.Print it print
Use myelinate. Make me a printable 25-question practice test for Exam 2 with the answer key on separate pages.Check your notes notes
Use myelinate. Here is my Notion page for chapter 7. Tell me honestly what I understand, what I only copied from the slides, and what I have wrong, then quiz me from it.Study guide for recall print
Use myelinate to make a printable study guide for Exam 2: questions first, answers at the back, blank diagrams to label, and a mixed self-test.Learn something for yourself teach
Use myelinate. I want to learn to read ECGs well enough for clinical shadowing. Design the course, then teach it to me one lesson at a time.Get help with homework assignment
Use myelinate. Here is my problem set, due Thursday. Coach me through it, but I will write and submit my own work.Learn while you build project
Use myelinate to help me build a garden irrigation controller. Explain how each part works as we go, and tell me when I should just follow the wiring diagram.Test me and grade it assess
Use myelinate to write a 20-question test on chapters 4–6, give it to me one question at a time, grade it against a key and rubric, and keep a gradebook.Run a whole course course-project
Use myelinate to build a full university-level software engineering course I can run as a Claude Project: syllabus, lessons, assignments and tests.Pick the skill yourself Claude Code
/myelinate:assess Quiz me on chapter 5 and grade my answers honestly.04 Install
Add it to the assistant you already use.
Myelinate is a Claude Code plugin and a folder of Markdown skills. No packages, keys or accounts beyond your assistant’s own.
Claude Code Plugin · recommended
/plugin install myelinate --marketplace baney75/myelinateInstalls all fifteen skills and the router. Each one loads by itself when your request fits it. Force one with a slash command: /myelinate:myelinate for the router, or /myelinate:tutor, /myelinate:assignment, /myelinate:project and so on.
On Claude Code before 2.1.275, run /plugin marketplace add baney75/myelinate, then /plugin install myelinate@baney75. To limit it, tell Claude (or save to its memory) where you don’t want Myelinate, such as “don’t tutor me on my coding projects”. Ordinary coding, building and work requests don’t trigger it in the first place.
Claude apps
- Download the repository as a ZIP.
- Upload it where Claude lets you add a skill (in Settings, under Skills).
- Start a chat with
Use myelinate to…
No skill uploads where you are? Paste SKILL.md into a project’s instructions instead.
Claude Code Skill folder · macOS · Linux
git clone https://github.com/baney75/myelinate.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
ln -s "$PWD/myelinate" ~/.claude/skills/myelinateRun the link command from the directory that holds the clone, then start a new session.
Codex macOS · Linux
git clone https://github.com/baney75/myelinate.git
mkdir -p "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills"
ln -s "$PWD/myelinate" "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/myelinate"If a myelinate skill already exists, inspect it before replacing anything. On Windows, copy the folder into your skills directory. Then use $myelinate.
Other assistants
If it can open links, paste the line above. Otherwise use its skill importer on this folder, or give it SKILL.md as instructions, with the skills/ and references/ folders for the full suite.
Browsing and file reading let it research current sources and read your course files; without them, it says what it could not check. Compatibility has not been tested in every assistant.
05 Guardrails
Honest about you, honest about itself.
Never labels learners
It asks how you learn — pace, chunk size, what’s hard. You may share a learning condition if you choose; it is never required, and it never guesses one.
Honest progress
Independent, hinted and revealed answers are recorded as different things. No invented mastery scores.
Honest, not agreeable
No confirming wrong answers, no inflated praise, no caving to pushback on a correct correction. Evidence changes its mind; pressure doesn’t.
A profile you control
What it learns about how you learn lives in your assistant’s memory or a profile file you keep. Course files and personal details stay out of public outputs.
Sources and limits, shown
Claims come with sources, and it says when it is unsure or could not check something.
No pretend reminders
A suggested review time is a suggestion. It only schedules something when your assistant can actually schedule it.
No guaranteed memory
It cannot force permanent memory or promise a grade, and it will not claim to.
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 teaches the same way, so you leave more capable, not more dependent.
About the name. Myelin insulates nerve fibers so signals jump from node to node. Practice strengthens the pathways you use. Here it is a metaphor, not a mechanism: no prompt changes your myelin.