explain-concept

Explain Concept 🧭

Umbrella router. It does not render anything. It picks the medium, hands off to one skill, and records what was learned.

When to use

• A request names an audience but not a format ("help the team understand the retry logic").
• A ticket, a bug, or a design must be explained to somebody who did not write it.
• You are about to write three paragraphs of prose about a structure. Stop and route.

Do not use it when the user already named the medium. Call that skill directly.

Step 1 — Clarify in ONE question

Ask one question only, and only if the answer is not already obvious:

Who is this for, and how will they receive it (image, editable file, or video)?

If the request already names an audience and a medium, skip the question.

Step 2 — Route

Signal in the request	Route to	Output
Quick topology, flow, or architecture picture; paste into chat or a PR	diagram-render	PNG
The reader must edit it, restyle it, or export SVG/PDF; swimlanes, UML, ER	drawio-skill	.drawio + export
Narrated walkthrough, async share, non-technical audience, onboarding	explainer-video	videos/<slug>/renders/video.mp4
No image is possible or wanted; the reader will read the code	text trail	ordered file:line list

Rules for the routes:

• diagram-render — the picture is static and the reader only looks at it.
• drawio-skill — the picture has a second life: somebody changes it later.
• explainer-video — timing matters. The reader needs the order of events spoken, not inferred. Example: a webhook race bug where two handlers write the same row.
• text trail — the fallback. Give an ordered list of file:line stops, one sentence per stop on what to notice, and 5 lines of summary at most. Do not paraphrase the code.

Pick one route. Do not produce two mediums for the same request unless the user asks for both.

Step 3 — Always record lessons

After the chosen skill finishes, append one line to that skill's references/lessons.md if anything was learned: