Agent skill

Cognitive Load Analyser

by GarethManning in GarethManning/education-agent-skills

Analyse a learning task for cognitive load problems and recommend specific design improvements.

Custom licenceAuto-check passedEducation

Install Cognitive Load Analyser

skills CLI
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill cognitive-load-analyser -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills cognitive-load-analyser --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/memory-learning-science/cognitive-load-analyser .claude/skills/cognitive-load-analyser && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
cognitive-load-analyser
GitHub stars
840
Token cost
~4.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,450 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
160
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

Analyse a learning task for cognitive load problems and recommend specific design improvements.

  • Works in 4 steps: Three separate sheets create severe… → Simultaneous activities compete for… → Comprehension questions encourage… → …
  • Tasks overwhelm students
  • SKILL.md covers What This Skill Does, Evidence Foundation, Input Schema and Prompt, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Cognitive Load Analyser is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Analyse a learning task for cognitive load problems and recommend specific design improvements. Use when tasks overwhelm students, instructions feel complex, or materials need simplifying.

Its SKILL.md is about 4.6k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Education. The repository describes itself as: 165 evidence-grounded AI skills for teachers, school leaders and EdTech builders—pedagogy, learning science, curriculum, assessment and regeneration. Claude, Codex and Hermes.

When your agent uses it

  • Tasks overwhelm students
  • Instructions feel complex
  • Materials need simplifying

Example prompts

  • “/cognitive-load-analyser”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Three separate sheets create severe split-attention. Students must hold information in working memory while physically switching between…
  2. Simultaneous activities compete for working memory. Reading, diagram labelling, and question answering are three parallel tasks, each…
  3. Comprehension questions encourage search-and-copy, not understanding. Students scan the text for keywords matching the questions rather…
  4. No worked example or process model. Novice learners encountering the water cycle for the first time have no schema to organise the…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 6bbbce4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Cognitive Load Analyser loads about 4.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 53 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,450 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~53
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~4.6k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 1,450 words (~4,561 tokens).

“Evaluates a learning task, instruction set, or resource for cognitive load across three dimensions: intrinsic load (inherent complexity of the content), extraneous load (unnecessary difficulty caused by poor design), and germane load (productive cognitive effort directed at schema building). Produces…”

— opening of SKILL.md by GarethManning, Custom licence
name
cognitive-load-analyser
disable-model-invocation
false
user-invocable
true
effort
medium
skill_id
memory-learning-science/cognitive-load-analyser
skill_name
Cognitive Load Analyser
domain
memory-learning-science
version
1.0
evidence_strength
strong
evidence_sources
Sweller (1988) — Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning, Sweller (1994) — Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional…
output_schema.type
object

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/memory-learning-science/cognitive-load-analyser of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4

Compare with similar skills

Cognitive Load Analyser next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Cognitive Load Analyser compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Cognitive Load Analyser this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills840—~4.6kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
DeepTutor CLIHKUDS/DeepTutor41k—~2.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
AI Engineering Placement Quizrohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch67k—~2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Deep Reading Analystginobefun/deep-reading-analyst-skill3544 repos~3.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
OpenMAIC Setup and ExtensionTHU-MAIC/OpenMAIC40k—~1.7kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Codebase to Coursezarazhangrui/codebase-to-course5.7k—~4.4kAutomated safety check: PassNone

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Categories

Questions about Cognitive Load Analyser

What does Cognitive Load Analyser do?

Analyse a learning task for cognitive load problems and recommend specific design improvements. Cognitive Load Analyser is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Analyse a learning task for cognitive load problems and recommend specific design improvements.

When should I use Cognitive Load Analyser?

Cognitive Load Analyser fits situations like: tasks overwhelm students; instructions feel complex; materials need simplifying.

How do I install Cognitive Load Analyser in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill cognitive-load-analyser -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/memory-learning-science/cognitive-load-analyser in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/cognitive-load-analyser in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Cognitive Load Analyser in Codex?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill cognitive-load-analyser -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/memory-learning-science/cognitive-load-analyser in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/cognitive-load-analyser in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Cognitive Load Analyser in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill cognitive-load-analyser -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/cognitive-load-analyser, .gemini/skills/cognitive-load-analyser, .github/skills/cognitive-load-analyser and .opencode/skills/cognitive-load-analyser in your project.

What does Cognitive Load Analyser need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Cognitive Load Analyser is instructions for the agent only.

Does Cognitive Load Analyser access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Cognitive Load Analyser safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Cognitive Load Analyser use?

Cognitive Load Analyser has a licence file (the repository's licence) that doesn't match a standard licence. Read it on GitHub before reusing the skill.

How many tokens does Cognitive Load Analyser use?

About 4.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 18k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Cognitive Load Analyser?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Cognitive Load Analyser: DeepTutor CLI (HKUDS/DeepTutor, 41k stars), AI Engineering Placement Quiz (rohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch, 67k stars), Deep Reading Analyst (ginobefun/deep-reading-analyst-skill, 354 stars) and OpenMAIC Setup and Extension (THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC, 40k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Cognitive Load Analyser?

GarethManning (a GitHub user) maintains it in GarethManning/education-agent-skills, which has 840 GitHub stars. The repository holds 160 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 28, 2026.

Source: GarethManning/education-agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.