Learning Progression Builder Agent Skill

Build a learning progression showing prerequisite-to-mastery steps for a target skill or understanding.

Context cost
5.4k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 21.7 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Build a learning progression showing prerequisite-to-mastery steps for a target skill or understanding. Use when sequencing content, designing diagnostics, or mapping prerequisite gaps.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

curriculum-mappingdiagnosticdocumentationlearning-progressionsprerequisitestrajectories

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md21.7 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: learning-progression-builder disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # EXISTING FIELDS skill_id: "curriculum-assessment/learning-progression-builder" skill_name: "Learning Progression Builder" domain: "curriculum-assessment" version: "1.0" evidence_strength: "moderate" evidence_sources: - "Heritage (2008) — Learning progressions: supporting instruction and formative assessment" - "Popham (2007) — The lowdown on learning progressions" - "Daro et al. (2011) — Learning trajectories in mathematics: a foundation for standards, curriculum, assessment, and instruction" - "Wilson & Bertenthal (2005) — Systems for state science assessment" - "Hattie & Donoghue (2016) — Learning strategies: a synthesis and conceptual model" input_schema: required: - field: "target_skill" type: "string" - field: "student_level" type: "string" optional: - field: "subject_area" type: "string" - field: "starting_point" type: "string" - field: "student_profiles" type: "array" - field: "curriculum_framework" type: "string" output_schema: type: "object" fields: - field: "progression_map" type: "array" - field: "prerequisite_relationships" type: "object" - field: "common_stuck_points" type: "array" - field: "diagnostic_tasks" type: "array" chains_well_with: - "competency-unpacker" - "formative-assessment-technique-selector" - "practice-problem-sequence-designer" - "backwards-design-unit-planner" - "curriculum-knowledge-architecture-designer" - "scope-and-sequence-designer" teacher_time: "4 minutes" tags: ["learning-progressions", "trajectories", "prerequisites", "diagnostic", "curriculum-mapping"] ---
69# Learning Progression Builder
70
71## What This Skill Does
72
73Maps the learning progression from novice to target proficiency for a specific skill domain, identifying the sequential stages of understanding, the prerequisite relationships between them (what must come before what), common stuck points (where students typically stall and why), and diagnostic tasks that reveal which stage a student is currently at. The output is a progression map that teachers can use for three purposes: planning instruction (teaching in the right sequence), formative assessment (diagnosing where a student is), and differentiation (providing the right support for each student's current stage). AI is specifically valuable here because constructing a valid learning progression requires both deep content knowledge (understanding the logical structure of the domain) and pedagogical knowledge (knowing where students actually get stuck, which is not always where the content logic would predict).
74
75## Evidence Foundation
76
77Heritage (2008) defined learning progressions as "descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as children learn." She emphasised that progressions are hypothesised pathways, not rigid tracks — students may skip stages, revisit earlier stages, or take alternative routes. Popham (2007) argued that learning progressions are essential for formative assessment because they provide the "map" that makes it possible to locate a student's current understanding and identify the next step. Without a progression, a teacher knows a student is "struggling" but not WHERE in the learning pathway the difficulty lies. Daro et al. (2011) demonstrated that mathematics learning trajectories — empirically validated progressions — provide the foundation for coherent curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Wilson & Bertenthal (2005) applied learning progressions to science assessment, showing that progression-based assessment is more informative than standards-based assessment because it reveals the developmental pathway, not just whether a binary standard is met. Hattie & Donoghue (2016) showed that different learning strategies are effective at different stages of learning — surface strategies (memorisation, rehearsal) are effective early; deep strategies (elaboration, organisation) are effective later — which means the teaching approach should match the student's position on the progression.
78
79## Input Schema
80
81The teacher must provide:
82- **Target skill:** What students should be able to do at the end. *e.g. "Solve multi-step equations with the unknown on both sides" / "Write a developed analytical paragraph about a text" / "Design and evaluate a fair scientific experiment"*
83- **Student level:** Year group range. *e.g. "Year 7–9" / "KS3" / "Middle school"*
84
85Optional (injected by context engine if available):
86- **Subject area:** The curriculum subject
87- **Starting point:** Where students begin
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md3,091 words
Files1
Licencenot declared
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈710
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
4,715
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
2.7%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 27% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

5.4k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

1 file, 21.7 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md21.7 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 1 file you can review in full before installing.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Learning Progression Builder · 5.4k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/learning-progression-builder/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/learning-progression-builder" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/learning-progression-builder ] || { mv .claude/skills/learning-progression-builder "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/learning-progression-builder" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/learning-progression-builder"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/learning-progression-builder

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/learning-progression-builder/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/learning-progression-builder/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/learning-progression-builder" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/learning-progression-builder ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/learning-progression-builder "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/learning-progression-builder" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/learning-progression-builder" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/learning-progression-builder/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Version1.0
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencegarethmanning/learning-progression-builder

Versions

v1.0 is what is on the shelf; no release here carries a date. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

v1.0
  • No earlier releases have been published to the marketplace.
Pinning

The install command always fetches the release that is current the day you run it — v1.0 today — and cannot ask for an earlier one. The copy on your disk does not change until you run it again.

Reviews

—no reviews yet

Nobody has reviewed this skill yet. The rating is the mean of the reviews written here, so there is none until somebody writes the first.

Sign in to review it

A review is tied to an account so it can be answered, edited and taken down by the person who wrote it.

Sign in
Who can post

Anybody with an account, one review each. It carries the version that was current when you wrote it, and the publisher may reply once.

Publisher
Servers0
Claim this skill