Course Study

Other

Turn a course's materials (PDF slides, a pasted topic list, or just a course name) into complete-coverage, Feynman-explained, exam-ready revision notes. Triggers: "study/revise this course", "revise these lecture slides", "make a study guide / cheat sheet for my midterm/final/quiz", "explain <course topic> simply", "$course-study". Do NOT use for: album/music review (→ album-review); open-ended tutoring conversation; solving or doing the user's graded homework / exam questions to submit; generating notes for a course with no materials AND no identifiable standard syllabus.

Install

openclaw skills install course-study

Course Study v3.0

A lean four-phase workflow that turns a course into complete-coverage, Feynman-explained, exam-ready revision notes. The #1 guarantee is completeness (every topic covered, nothing silently dropped); the defining pedagogy is the Feynman concept block (plain-language capsule first + mandatory worked example).

Primary output: revision-notes.md. Optional: a one-line-per-entry quick-reference.md cheat sheet, and PDF export (CJK/bilingual aware).

This file is a thin orchestrator — load the rules/ module for each phase.

Pipeline

Phase 0 Intake (single exchange)
  ├── PDF slides → Phase 1 (extract via /pdf skill)
  ├── Topic list → Phase 1 (parse into the checklist)
  └── Course name → search standard syllabus → Phase 1
Phase 1 Cover    → extract ALL content (page-aligned) + EMIT the coverage checklist (the ledger)
Phase 2 Distill  → revision-notes.md in Feynman block order; RECONCILE against the Phase-1 checklist
Phase 3 Supplement (OPTIONAL, light) → ≤~10 sourced targets for genuine gaps / thin concepts
VERIFY/REPORT    → coverage reconciled, examples present, sources traced; emit files

Each phase ends with a one-line checkpoint; proceed on no-objection. Never spread intake across multiple messages.

Phase 0 — Intake: load rules/phase-intake.md. One exchange: input type, rough page count → scale tier, output language, exam date, priority topics, output folder; detect web access silently.
Phase 1 — Cover: load rules/phase-cover.md. Extract every concept page-aligned (PDF via the /pdf skill; or parse the topic list; or build the outline from a searched standard syllabus). Emit the coverage checklist enumerating every topic — the completeness ledger Phase 2 reconciles against.
Phase 2 — Distill (main deliverable): load rules/phase-distill.md. Write revision-notes.md in backbone order, each concept in the Feynman block order below, with cross-topic bridges. Then reconcile the notes against the Phase-1 checklist — flag and fill any missing topic before finalizing.
Phase 3 — Supplement (optional, light): load rules/phase-supplement.md only for genuine gaps / thin concepts. Cap ≤~10 targets. Dual web / no-web.

The Feynman concept block (Phase 2 — mandatory order)

Every concept is written in this exact order. The plain-language capsule comes first — never lead with the formal definition.

Plain-language capsule — explain it simply, as if to a smart friend with no jargon. One short paragraph. (This is FIRST, always.)
Intuition — why it exists, what problem it solves, an analogy if it helps.
Formal treatment — the precise version: LaTeX formula or code, symbols defined.
Worked example — a concrete, step-by-step example (numbers plugged in / algorithm traced). Mandatory for every non-trivial concept.
Connections + common misconception — prerequisites and what it enables; a cross-topic bridge where useful; one thing students typically get wrong.

Full template and depth calibration: rules/phase-distill.md and rules/templates.md.

Global Rules (controls)

PDF-only input via /pdf. ALL PDF reading — including scanned / image-only PDFs — goes through the /pdf skill. NEVER raw file I/O or Python on PDFs. Non-PDF inputs (PPTX/DOCX/images) are converted via /pdf first.
Completeness invariant. Phase 2 notes are reconciled against the Phase-1 coverage checklist before finalizing. Any extracted/checklist topic missing from the notes is flagged and filled — never silently dropped or skipped.
Worked-example invariant. Every non-trivial concept gets a concrete worked example. A pure-definition concept with no feasible example gets the plain-language capsule + a short note (e.g. "definitional — no worked example applies") — never a fabricated/forced example.
No fabrication. Offline supplements are marked [Standard curriculum knowledge]; ZERO invented URLs / papers / authors / slide content. Uncertain claims are omitted or flagged [Uncertain — verify before exam]. On the course-name path, never fabricate a specific lecture's slide content.
Source traceability. Every note traces to its source location: page (PDF, Lecture X, p. Y) or section (topic list / syllabus). Never lose it.
Honor the source. A slide that contradicts standard curriculum is flagged as a discrepancy (show the slide's claim + the standard view) — NOT silently "corrected" to the textbook version.
Scale guard. Size picks the tier — page count (PDF) or topic count (topic list / syllabus): large inputs (>~400 pages, or >~150 topics) → split, recommend per-module runs and batch; the checklist spans the whole course so nothing is silently dropped across batches.
Scope guard. Produce revision material, not answers to graded assessments. Do NOT solve / do the user's actual homework or exam questions for submission; offer how to approach them as a study topic instead.
Output discipline. Dense notes, no padding. quick-reference.md (if produced) is one line per entry, ordered by exam relevance — no prose. Completeness of coverage is non-negotiable — never drop a topic to be brief. If the user wants brevity, satisfy it via depth calibration (more topics at minimal capsule depth) and/or the quick-reference.md cheat sheet, never by omitting topics.
Track progress. Use a TodoList for which lectures/topics are processed.
Prioritize flagged topics. Priority topics named in Phase 0 get deeper treatment and appear first in quick-reference.md.

Reference Files

File	When to load
`rules/phase-intake.md`	Phase 0 — single-exchange intake, scale tier, web detection.
`rules/phase-cover.md`	Phase 1 — page-aligned extraction + the coverage checklist (ledger).
`rules/phase-distill.md`	Phase 2 — Feynman blocks, bridges, the coverage reconciliation step.
`rules/phase-supplement.md`	Phase 3 — optional light supplement, dual web/no-web, ≤~10 cap.
`rules/templates.md`	Writing rules + the Feynman concept-block & quick-reference templates.
`rules/subject-coverage.md`	Course-name input & standard-syllabus search; checklist baseline.
`rules/pdf-export.md`	Load only when PDF output is requested (pandoc CJK/bilingual config).
`rules/changelog.md`	Version history.

Anti-Patterns

Avoid	Why	Instead
Leading a concept with the formal definition	Buries understanding	Plain-language capsule FIRST, every time
Skipping the worked example	Students fail on application, not definitions	Mandatory for every non-trivial concept
Fabricating an example for a pure-definition term	Misleads	Capsule + a note; no fake example
Finalizing notes without reconciling the checklist	Topics get silently dropped	Reconcile against the Phase-1 ledger; flag + fill
Silently "fixing" a slide that contradicts curriculum	Hides what the exam may test	Flag the discrepancy; show both views
Dropping a topic to keep the notes short	Breaks the #1 completeness guarantee	Completeness is non-negotiable; get brevity via depth calibration + the cheat sheet
Reading a PDF with Python / raw I/O	Breaks the contract	Use the `/pdf` skill for ALL PDFs
Inventing URLs/papers offline	Distorts revision	Mark `[Standard curriculum knowledge]`; invent nothing
Prose in `quick-reference.md`	Defeats the cheat sheet	One line per entry, ordered by exam relevance
Building a standalone exam-Q&A bank	Cut as too complex	Notes + optional one-line cheat sheet only