Alvarmethod README

The project's README from github.com/vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod. As one markdown file: README.md.

Alvarmethod — probe, plan, teach

One teacher. One mind.
Portable agent skills that run Eero Alvar’s AI learning loop.

stars MIT Agent Skills Eero Alvar 

npx skills add vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod -g --all

That’s the install. Works in Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Pi, OpenCode, Cursor, and the rest of the skills CLI agents.

Then open a learning folder (not this repo) and say:

/teach I want a solid introduction to <topic>

You should get a quiz picker (not A/B/C/D in chat) → a mermaid DAG → one reasoning step → a lock-in quiz.

Quick install

npx skills (preferred)

The open skills CLI. Discovers every skills/*/SKILL.md in this repo.

# global, every detected agent, no prompts
npx skills add vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod -g --all

# list what’s in the pack
npx skills add vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod --list

# one skill
npx skills add vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod --skill teach -g -y

# one harness
npx skills add vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod -g -y -a claude-code -a grok -a pi -a opencode -a codex

Update later:

npx skills update -g

npx this repo

No extra CLI — runs install.sh from GitHub:

npx github:vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod
npx github:vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod --list
npx github:vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod --claude --grok

Clone

git clone https://github.com/vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod.git
cd Alvarmethod
./install.sh          # all known agent dirs
./install.sh --project
./install.sh --uninstall
Agent Global path
Codex ~/.codex/skills + ~/.agents/skills
Claude Code ~/.claude/skills
Grok ~/.grok/skills
Pi ~/.pi/agent/skills
OpenCode ~/.config/opencode/skills

The method

Credit: Eero Alvar — How I Use AI to Learn Things (2026-08-14). This pack implements that loop as Agent Skills. It is not his original Pi quiz / Obsidian setup. Captions: source/eero-alvar-how-i-use-ai-to-learn-things.md.

Many-to-many learning leaks:

Direction Waste
One outlet → many students Never fitted to your edge
One student → many outlets Switching cost + the brain hedges on sources it does not trust

Fix: one interface, many sources. Trust is engineered (verify). Struggle stays in the material. The system eats logistics.

flowchart LR
  A[Probe<br/>edge of this mind] --> B[Plan<br/>mermaid DAG]
  B --> C[Teach<br/>one node]
  C --> D[Lock-in quiz]
  D -->|pass| C
  D -->|fail| E[Insert prereq]
  E --> C
  1. Probe — graded MCQ in the harness picker, start wide, binary-search every strand
  2. Plan — mermaid DAG for this mind, shown before teaching
  3. Teach — one reasoning step, picture if needed, quiz, next node

Skills

Skill Job
teach Full loop: probe → plan → one-step teaching
probe Understanding map only
learn-profile Write .alvar/LEARNER.md
learn-visual One SVG, look at it, fix it
learn-verify Fact-check a claim before it is taught as fact

Quizzes must use the native picker:

Agent Tool
Grok / Codex ask_user_question
Claude Code AskUserQuestion
OpenCode question
Pi quiz / ask_user / askUserQuestion

If the agent pastes A/B/C/D, say “use the quiz tool.” If it dumps a textbook, say “one node only.”

Session files land in the learning folder:

.alvar/LEARNER.md
.alvar/maps/<topic>.md
.alvar/sessions/<date>-<topic>.md
.alvar/visuals/…

Point Obsidian at .alvar/ if you want LaTeX preview.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Edit skills here, then reinstall. Don’t patch the copies under ~/.claude / ~/.grok.

License

MIT for the skills, installer, and docs.

The video and spoken method are Eero Alvar’s. Watch the original: youtu.be/kzcI5F4tGiU.

Alvarmethod (vasanthsreeram/Alvarmethod)

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162 ·GitHub
Alvarmethod
What is this?Alvarmethod is a portable pack of AI agent skills that implements Eero Alvar's one-to-one AI teaching loop (probe, plan, teach) inside your existing coding agent, turning it into a personal tutor for any topic you add to a learning folder.
Is this a standalone app or something I install into my AI agent?It is not a standalone app. It is a set of Agent Skills (SKILL.md files) that get copied into the skills folder of agents you already use, like Claude Code or Codex.
Which coding agents are supported?Codex, Claude Code, Grok, Pi, OpenCode, Cursor and other skills-CLI compatible agents are supported, each with its own global install path (e.g. ~/.claude/skills for Claude Code, ~/.codex/skills for Codex).
Does the quiz UI always work correctly?It depends on the agent correctly invoking its native question picker (askuserquestion, AskUserQuestion, question, or quiz/askuser); if an agent instead pastes plain A/B/C/D text or dumps a full lesson, you have to manually tell it to 'use the quiz tool' or stick to one node.
How do I actually use it once installed?Open a learning folder (not this repository) and ask the agent to teach you; it should respond with a quiz picker, then a mermaid diagram of the topic, one reasoning step, and a final lock-in quiz.
What skills does the pack include?Five skills: 'teach' runs the full probe-plan-teach loop, 'probe' just maps your understanding, 'learn-profile' writes a learner profile file, 'learn-visual' generates one fixable SVG diagram, and 'learn-verify' fact-checks a claim before it is taught.
Why was this built instead of just chatting with an AI to learn?The author frames open-ended many-to-many learning (one teacher to many students, or one student hopping between many sources) as wasteful and untrustworthy; this pack fixes it with a single interface, engineered trust, and one teaching step at a time so struggle stays in the material, not the logistics.
Where do my learning sessions get saved?Session files are written into a .alvar/ folder inside your learning directory, and you can point Obsidian at that folder if you want LaTeX preview of the notes.
What are similar projects?nuwa-skill, pstack, pstack-claude, claude-pxl, Waza, agents, draw-architecture, zhangxuefeng-skill
Which topics is it in?npx, opencode, skill, shell, cursor, agentic-ai, learning, claude, agent-skills, codex, claude-code, education
Creator
vasanthsreeram
Size
<0.1 MB
Stars
162
Updated
CommitAug 16
Age
2mo
Commits · 90 Days