RULER Emotional Literacy Sequence Agent Skill

Design a RULER emotional literacy sequence for recognising, understanding, labelling, expressing, and regulating emotions.

Context cost
5.5k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 22.1 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Design a RULER emotional literacy sequence for recognising, understanding, labelling, expressing, and regulating emotions. Use when students struggle with emotional regulation, conflict, or anxiety.

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.

brackettdocumentationemotional-intelligenceemotional-literacymood-meterrulerselyale

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.md22.1 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # EXISTING FIELDS skill_id: "wellbeing-motivation-agency/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" skill_name: "RULER Emotional Literacy Sequence" domain: "wellbeing-motivation-agency" version: "1.0" evidence_strength: "strong" evidence_sources: - "Brackett (2019) — Permission to Feel: the power of emotional intelligence to achieve well-being and success" - "Brackett et al. (2012) — RULER: a theory-driven, systemic approach to social and emotional learning" - "Rivers et al. (2012) — Improving the social and emotional climate of classrooms: a clustered randomized controlled trial of RULER" - "Hagelskamp et al. (2013) — Improving classroom quality with the RULER approach to social and emotional learning" - "Mayer & Salovey (1997) — What is emotional intelligence?" input_schema: required: - field: "emotional_context" type: "string" - field: "student_level" type: "string" optional: - field: "subject_area" type: "string" - field: "student_profiles" type: "array" - field: "time_available" type: "string" - field: "ruler_familiarity" type: "string" output_schema: type: "object" fields: - field: "ruler_sequence" type: "object" - field: "tool_selection" type: "string" - field: "integration_plan" type: "object" - field: "teacher_modelling" type: "string" chains_well_with: - "belonging-classroom-culture-designer" - "trauma-informed-practice-designer" - "restorative-practice-protocol-designer" - "perma-based-lesson-designer" teacher_time: "3 minutes" tags: ["RULER", "emotional-intelligence", "Brackett", "Yale", "SEL", "emotional-literacy", "mood-meter"] ---
67# RULER Emotional Literacy Sequence
68
69## What This Skill Does
70
71Designs a structured sequence for developing emotional literacy using the RULER framework from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence — teaching students to Recognise emotions in themselves and others, Understand the causes and consequences of emotions, Label emotions with a nuanced vocabulary, Express emotions appropriately, and Regulate emotions using effective strategies. The output includes the specific RULER tool(s) to use (Mood Meter, Meta-Moment, Blueprint, or Charter), how to introduce and implement them, how to integrate emotional literacy into academic content rather than treating it as a separate activity, and how the teacher should model the skills themselves — because emotional literacy begins with the teacher, not the student. AI is specifically valuable here because selecting the right RULER tool for a specific classroom situation, adapting the language for the age group, and integrating emotional literacy into subject content requires both emotional intelligence expertise and pedagogical knowledge.
72
73## Evidence Foundation
74
75Brackett (2019) and Brackett et al. (2012) developed RULER at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, based on Mayer & Salovey's (1997) ability model of emotional intelligence. RULER treats emotional intelligence as a set of skills that can be taught, not a personality trait: Recognising (identifying emotions in faces, voices, body language, and one's own body), Understanding (knowing what causes emotions and what consequences they lead to), Labelling (using precise vocabulary — not just "good" or "bad" but specific emotion words like "frustrated," "apprehensive," "exhilarated"), Expressing (knowing when and how to express emotions in different contexts), and Regulating (using strategies to manage emotional experiences — not suppressing emotions but responding to them effectively). Rivers et al. (2012) conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial of RULER in 62 classrooms and found significant improvements in classroom emotional climate, including more emotional support, better classroom organisation, and greater instructional support. Hagelskamp et al. (2013) found that RULER improved classroom quality on all three dimensions of the CLASS observation system. Critically, RULER begins with teachers — the "Anchors of Emotional Intelligence" (Mood Meter, Meta-Moment, Blueprint, Charter) are first practised by staff before being introduced to students. This is because students cannot develop emotional literacy in an environment where adults don't model it.
76
77## Input Schema
78
79The teacher must provide:
80- **Emotional context:** The situation prompting this. *e.g. "Students are highly anxious before mock exams — several are crying, refusing to enter the exam hall, or shutting down completely" / "There's persistent low-level conflict between two friendship groups that's disrupting collaborative work" / "A student has frequent emotional outbursts (shouting, leaving the room) that they can't seem to control"*
81- **Student level:** Year group. *e.g. "Year 8"*
82
83Optional (injected by context engine if available):
84- **Subject area:** The curriculum subject
85- **Student profiles:** Emotional climate data, specific needs
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md3,239 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.

≈790
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
4,735
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
2.8%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 28% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

5.5k 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, 22.1 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md22.1 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.

# RULER Emotional Literacy Sequence · 5.5k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence ] || { mv .claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence

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/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence/ 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/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence/ 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/ruler-emotional-literacy-sequence

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.

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