Individual skill
explain-this
Explain whatever the user is pointing at right now in plain language: a pending question, a piece of code, an error, a command output, or an artifact like a plan or findings report. Use when the user asks to "explain this", "what am I being asked", "what's happening right now", "help me understand this", "what does this mean", "what does this error mean", "what is this code doing", or "what do these options mean".
codex/skills/explain-this/SKILL.md
Source commit d56f17f0ba88ead3a4a77fcdc884f80cd3d10d2f
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- Last checked
- Nov 10, 2026
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- Repository last updated
- Nov 12, 2026
- License
- MIT
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SKILL.mdcore · 4,624 bytes
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# Explain This
Take whatever the user is pointing at and translate it into plain language. "This" is usually the most recent assistant output or something pasted as an argument: a multi-option prompt, a free-form question, a code block, an error, a command output, or an artifact like a plan, findings report, or diff.
## Step 1: Identify the Subject
Pick the subject in priority order:
1. Text passed as an argument — use that
2. A quoted or selected region from the user's most recent message — use that
3. The most recent non-trivial assistant output — use that
4. If the guess is not obvious, lead the explanation by naming what was picked so the user can redirect
## Step 2: Ground in State