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understanding-ladder

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Pick the output format that makes an explanation easiest to understand, following Karpathy's understanding ladder — (1) plain controlled text, (2) diagram, (3) interactive HTML page, (4) 3Blue1Brown-style explainer video. Classify the content (definition/steps, process/causality, parameter→outcome, unfolding derivation), recommend the lowest rung that fully answers, then produce it. Works in English and Chinese. Use when the user says "explain this clearly", "help me understand", "draw a diagram", "make it interactive", "make an explainer video", "what's the best way to explain X", "understanding ladder", "Karpathy ladder", or 「讲清楚」「帮我理解」「画个图」「做个交互页」「做个讲解视频」「用哪种方式讲最好懂」「理解阶梯」; also when explaining a non-trivial concept, mechanism, algorithm, or an AI agent's output.

skills/understanding-ladder/SKILL.md

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# Understanding ladder

This skill decides **which format** to explain in. Writing quality inside every format is handled by level 1 rules (below).

Source: Andrej Karpathy, 2026-10-02 <https://x.com/karpathy/status/2105819303471976479>. LLM output is nearly free; human understanding is the bottleneck. So ask for formats that are easier to understand. He ranked four, each "even better" than the last — and each more expensive.

**Language:** reply in the user's language. These instructions are in English; the output is not.

## The four rungs

| Rung | Format | Why it is easier | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plain controlled text | One idea per sentence, one meaning per term; read once, no misreading | lowest |
| 2 | Diagram | Text is linear; a diagram lays the structure out at once | low |
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