Think-Aloud Script Generator Agent Skill

Script a teacher think-aloud demonstrating expert reasoning processes for a specific task.

Context cost
5.3k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 21.1 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Script a teacher think-aloud demonstrating expert reasoning processes for a specific task. Use when modelling problem-solving, writing, reading comprehension, or analytical processes.

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.

cognitive-apprenticeshipcomprehensiondocumentationexpert-thinkingmodellingthink-aloud

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.md21.1 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: think-aloud-script-generator disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # EXISTING FIELDS skill_id: "explicit-instruction/think-aloud-script-generator" skill_name: "Think-Aloud Script Generator" domain: "explicit-instruction" version: "1.0" evidence_strength: "strong" evidence_sources: - "Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987) — The Psychology of Written Composition: making expert processes visible" - "Wilhelm (2001) — Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies" - "Ericsson & Simon (1993) — Protocol Analysis: verbal reports as data (theoretical foundation)" - "Collins et al. (1989) — Cognitive Apprenticeship: teaching the crafts of reading, writing, and mathematics" - "Rosenshine (2012) — Principles of Instruction, Principle 4: provide models of worked-out problems" input_schema: required: - field: "task_to_model" type: "string" - field: "student_level" type: "string" - field: "subject_area" type: "string" optional: - field: "expert_strategies" type: "array" - field: "common_student_errors" type: "array" - field: "student_profiles" type: "array" - field: "think_aloud_duration" type: "string" output_schema: type: "object" fields: - field: "script" type: "string" - field: "visible_strategies" type: "array" - field: "pause_points" type: "array" - field: "delivery_notes" type: "string" chains_well_with: - "explicit-instruction-sequence-builder" - "worked-example-fading-designer" - "metacognitive-prompt-library" - "reading-comprehension-strategy-selector" - "pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer" - "critical-thinking-task-designer" teacher_time: "4 minutes" tags: ["think-aloud", "modelling", "expert-thinking", "cognitive-apprenticeship", "comprehension"] ---
72# Think-Aloud Script Generator
73
74## What This Skill Does
75
76Scripts a teacher think-aloud that makes expert cognitive processes visible for a specific task — problem-solving, reading, writing, analysis, or any cognitive skill where the expert's thinking is normally invisible. The script articulates the decision points, self-monitoring moments, and error-detection strategies that experts use automatically but rarely verbalise. AI is specifically valuable here because the core challenge of think-aloud modelling is the "expert blind spot" — experts have automated their thinking to the point where they can no longer articulate the intermediate steps. A mathematics teacher "just sees" that a problem requires factorising; a skilled reader "just knows" that a source is unreliable. The think-aloud script reverse-engineers this automated expertise into teachable steps.
77
78## Evidence Foundation
79
80Collins et al. (1989) established cognitive apprenticeship as a framework for making expert thinking visible to novices. The key insight: in traditional crafts, learning is visible (you can watch a carpenter plane wood), but in academic subjects, the critical work happens inside the expert's head and is invisible to students. Think-alouds make the invisible visible. Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987) applied this to writing, demonstrating that expert writers engage in a "knowledge-transforming" process (planning, monitoring, revising) that novice writers skip entirely — and that modelling this process through think-alouds significantly improves student writing. Wilhelm (2001) showed that teacher think-alouds improved reading comprehension across multiple studies, particularly for struggling readers who lacked metacognitive monitoring strategies. Ericsson & Simon (1993) provided the theoretical foundation, demonstrating that verbal reports of thinking (when done concurrently rather than retrospectively) are valid representations of cognitive processes. Rosenshine (2012) identified providing models as Principle 4 of effective instruction, noting that the most effective teachers "thought aloud and modelled steps" rather than simply explaining procedures.
81
82## Input Schema
83
84The teacher must provide:
85- **Task to model:** The specific task to think aloud through. *e.g. "Reading and annotating an unseen poem for the first time" / "Solving a multi-step trigonometry problem" / "Evaluating the reliability of a historical source"*
86- **Student level:** Year group and expertise. *e.g. "Year 10, developing readers — can decode but don't actively monitor comprehension" / "Year 8, novice problem-solvers"*
87- **Subject area:** Subject context. *e.g. "GCSE English Literature" / "Year 9 Mathematics"*
88
89Optional (injected by context engine if available):
90- **Expert strategies:** Specific strategies to make visible
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md3,174 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.

≈720
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
4,555
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
2.6%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 26% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

5.3k 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, 21.1 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md21.1 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.

# Think-Aloud Script Generator · 5.3k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/think-aloud-script-generator/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/think-aloud-script-generator" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/think-aloud-script-generator ] || { mv .claude/skills/think-aloud-script-generator "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/think-aloud-script-generator" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/think-aloud-script-generator"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/think-aloud-script-generator

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

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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