Stuck & Error Diagnosis Coach Agent Skill

When a learner gets something wrong or feels stuck, require them to diagnose the problem before receiving help.

Context cost
3.8k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 15.1 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

When a learner gets something wrong or feels stuck, require them to diagnose the problem before receiving help. Ensures help targets the actual cognitive breakdown, not just the surface error.

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.

documentationerror-diagnosisfeedbackhelp-seekingmetacognitionstuck

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.md15.1 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: stuck-and-error-diagnosis-coach disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # DOMAIN 20 FIELDS skill_id: "student-learning/stuck-and-error-diagnosis-coach" skill_name: "Stuck & Error Diagnosis Coach" domain: "student-learning" domain_number: 20 version: "1.0" audience: "student" evidence_strength: "moderate" evidence_sources: - "Karabenick & Berger (2013) — Help seeking as a self-regulated learning strategy" - "VanLehn (2011) — The relative effectiveness of human tutoring, intelligent tutoring systems, and other tutoring systems" - "Hattie & Timperley (2007) — The power of feedback: process and self-regulation levels" - "Ohlsson (1996) — Learning from performance errors" - "Siegler (2002) — Microgenetic studies of self-explanation" input_schema: required: - field: "stuck_point_or_error" type: "string" - field: "context" type: "string" optional: - field: "prior_attempts" type: "array" - field: "developmental_band" type: "string" evidence_captured: cognitive_gate: "diagnosis" student_attempt_required: true confidence_before: false confidence_after: false hint_level_reached: "not_applicable" error_type: "conceptual | procedural | strategic | representational" ai_support_type: "question | hint | warm_start" reflection_captured: true transfer_check: "not_applicable" unassisted_followup: "not_scheduled" assistance_tag: "scaffolded" chains_well_with: - "student-learning/progressive-hint-ladder" - "student-learning/confidence-calibration-check" - "student-learning/productive-failure-protocol" - "student-learning/unassisted-evidence-checkpoint" tags: ["error-diagnosis", "stuck", "metacognition", "help-seeking", "feedback"] ---
59# Stuck & Error Diagnosis Coach
60
61## What This Skill Does
62
63When a learner gets something wrong or feels stuck, requires them to diagnose the problem before receiving targeted help. The diagnostic questions are: What have you tried? Where exactly does it break down? What kind of error do you think this is — a conceptual misunderstanding, a procedural slip, a strategic choice that didn't work, or something about how you're representing the problem? Help is then structured around the learner's own diagnosis rather than the surface error. This approach, grounded in Hattie & Timperley (2007) feedback theory, targets the process and self-regulation levels of feedback — not just "you got X wrong" but "here's why the process broke and how to fix it."
64
65## Evidence Foundation
66
67VanLehn (2011) reviewed the effectiveness of human tutors, intelligent tutoring systems, and other forms of instruction, finding that the most effective tutors work at step-level granularity — they don't just correct errors, they identify where in the reasoning chain the error arose. Hattie & Timperley's (2007) feedback model distinguishes four levels: task (was the answer right?), process (what went wrong in the method?), self-regulation (does the learner know how to catch this kind of error themselves?), and self (identity-level). Their meta-analysis showed that process and self-regulation feedback produce significantly stronger learning gains than task-level feedback alone — "you got it wrong" is one of the least useful forms of feedback for improving future performance. Karabenick & Berger (2013) note that adaptive help-seeking — asking for help in a targeted, specific way rather than requesting the answer — is itself a self-regulation skill that can be taught and that correlates with academic success. Ohlsson (1996) showed that errors, when properly processed, produce learning through constraint-based learning: each error eliminates an incorrect rule or representation. Siegler's (2002) microgenetic work demonstrated that the period of instability around an error — when the correct rule and incorrect rule are both active — is the highest-value learning moment.
68
69## System Prompt
70
71```
72You are a learning coach specialising in helping learners understand why they got stuck or went wrong — not just what the right answer is. The governing principle: targeted help requires accurate diagnosis. Before you provide any explanation or correction, the learner must articulate where the problem is and what kind of error they think it is.
73
74CONTEXT: {{context}}
75STUCK POINT OR ERROR: {{stuck_point_or_error}}
76PRIOR ATTEMPTS: {{prior_attempts — if not provided, treat this as the first reported attempt}}
77DEVELOPMENTAL BAND: {{developmental_band — if not provided, assume secondary school / undergraduate}}
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md2,308 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.

≈580
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
3,195
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
1.9%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 19% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

3.8k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Middling. Fine to keep on in a project where you use it weekly, worth unloading in one where you never do.

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

  • SKILL.md15.1 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.

# Stuck & Error Diagnosis Coach · 3.8k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach ] || { mv .claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach

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/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach/ 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/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach/ 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. It appears as stuck-and-error-diagnosis-coach in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, stuck-error-diagnosis-coach.

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/stuck-error-diagnosis-coach

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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