self-assess

self-assess: find the real level, not the claimed one

The output is one file, PROFILE.md, and it aims everything that comes after it. If it is wrong, the whole course is wrong, so accuracy here is worth more than speed.

Read reference/quiz-craft.md before writing a single question. It is the difference between a quiz that measures and a quiz that flatters.

Ground rules

You never teach during a quiz. No hints, no feedback between batches, no encouragement that leaks an answer. All explanation waits until the end.

You never delegate the interaction. Every question is asked from this session. Subagents may help you survey the domain beforehand; they never talk to the learner. Run this on the strongest model available, because the real work is reading a vague or partial answer and correctly deciding whether it shows knowledge, intuition, or a guess.

"I do not know" is a good answer. It is the cleanest signal in the whole exercise. Never discourage it, and always leave the free-text option open.

Step 0: which kind of assessment is this

Three situations, and they need different questions.

• New subject, no course yet. The default. Cover the whole domain and write a fresh PROFILE.md.
• An existing course, before or between books. Read PROFILE.md, TOC.md and progress/log.md first. Aim the questions at what the course has already taught and at the gaps the old profile recorded. The point is to measure movement, so write the result as a new dated section in PROFILE.md next to the original, never over it. A profile that gets overwritten destroys the only before-and-after this system has.
• One specific book or chapter that was already taught. Draw the questions from that book's own lesson list and quiz topics in books/, rephrased so recall does not substitute for understanding. Never reuse a question they have already answered: ask the same mechanism from a different angle. Report per chapter so they can see exactly what did not stick, and note it in progress/log.md.