How to use the Deep Interactive Course Design agent skill

What an agent skill is and what this one changes

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file of instructions that an AI agent reads when a request matches the skill. This one is named deep-interactive and is stored under skills/agent-runtime/deep-interactive in the THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC repository. Its licence is MIT.

The skill sets a default: the learner should be doing rather than reading. A page is a plain slide only when the learner has nothing to manipulate on it. The first scene is a slide that frames the question, the body is interactive, and the last scene is a slide or quiz that consolidates what the manipulation showed.

• Opening scene: one slide that states the question and what the learner will play with.
• Body scenes: interactive, each isolating one mechanism, variable or structure.
• Closing scene: a slide or quiz that summarises what the manipulation showed.
• Adjacent interactive scenes must use different widget types, so the course moves from watching to tracing to predicting.
• Widget types: simulation, diagram, code, game and visualization3d.

Install the deep-interactive skill

Download the skill ZIP from the directory page and unzip it. Then put the resulting folder in one of two places, depending on how far you want it to apply.

To make the skill available for all of your projects, place it in ~/.claude/skills/. To limit it to one project, place it in that project's .claude/skills/ folder.

In the Claude apps you can instead upload the ZIP under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

• Personal install: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
• Project install: unzip into the project's .claude/skills/
• Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, then upload the ZIP

Trigger the skill with natural requests

You do not need a special command. The skill is meant to be used when the topic has a mechanism, a variable to vary, a process to trace, or a structure to inspect. Describe the course in those terms and say you want it hands-on.

Good requests name the subject and the kind of interaction you want. Vague requests such as 'make a course' may not match the skill, so say what the learner should manipulate.

• Plan a course on projectile motion where learners change the launch angle and predict the range.
• Design an interactive lesson on how data flows through a web request, with a diagram learners expand.
• Outline a course on sorting algorithms where learners step through code and predict the next swap.
• Make a 3D scene lesson on cross-sections of a human heart that learners can rotate.

What the output looks like

The agent plans the course as a sequence of scenes. Each interactive scene gets a widget type and a widget outline filled in for that type, so the interactive part is actually specified rather than left as a label.

Scene titles name what the learner does or discovers, for example 'drag the angle and see how the range changes' rather than 'projectile motion'. Key points describe the interaction and the conclusion the observation should force, not a list of facts to be read aloud.

• Simulation: concept and keyVariables (the inputs to adjust).
• Diagram: diagramType and nodes, with parentId for hierarchy.
• Code: language and concept.
• Game: gameType, challenge and playerControls.
• Visualization3d: visualizationType, objects and interactions.

Requirements and safety notes

The skill lists no required dependencies. It does not run scripts and does not use the network, according to its listing. It consists of a single SKILL.md file plus outline-constraints.json.

The skill only guides planning and design of scenes. It does not run, host or publish a course. You still need your own course generator or authoring tool to turn the plan into a working lesson.

• Requires: nothing listed.
• Runs scripts: no.
• Uses network: no.
• Files: SKILL.md and outline-constraints.json.

Tips for better results

Pick a topic with something to vary. The skill's rules work well for mechanisms and structures and push toward artificial interactivity for topics like pure history or literature summaries.

Review the widget outlines. An interactive scene with an empty outline is what the skill is designed to avoid, so check that each one names its real inputs or nodes.

• Name the variables you want learners to change.
• Ask for a closing quiz if you want a formal check at the end.
• Check that adjacent interactive scenes use different widget types.