Build A Personal Skill From History
THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC
Derives a reusable personal skill for course-making from a representative sample of the user's own past classrooms and chat history, confirmed with them before saving.
Build students' capacity to place historical documents in their temporal and social context.
Install Contextualisation Skill Builder
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a claude-codeProject install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builder --agent claude-codeProject scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .claude/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.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/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .claude/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.Claude Code copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$skill-installer install https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builderType this inside Codex. $skill-installer <name> installs a curated skill from openai/skills. The installer writes to $CODEX_HOME/skills (default ~/.codex/skills). Restart Codex if the skill does not show up.
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a codexProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.codex/skills/.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builder --agent codexProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .agents/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.agents/skills/ instead of .agents/skills for a personal install.
Codex skills documentation · loads skills from .agents/skills/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .agents/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.Codex copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a cursorProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.cursor/skills/.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builder --agent cursorProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .cursor/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .cursor/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.cursor/skills/ instead of .cursor/skills for a personal install.
Cursor skills documentation · loads skills from .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .cursor/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.Cursor copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gemini skills install https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git --path skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder--scope user (default) or --scope workspace; --path is the subfolder of the repo that holds the skill; --consent skips the security confirmation prompt.
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a gemini-cliProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.gemini/skills/.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builder --agent gemini-cliProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .gemini/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .gemini/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.gemini/skills/ instead of .gemini/skills for a personal install, then run /skills reload.
Gemini CLI skills documentation · loads skills from .gemini/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .gemini/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.Gemini CLI copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builderInstalls for Copilot at project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Preview a skill first with gh skill preview. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a github-copilotProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.copilot/skills/.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .github/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .github/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.copilot/skills/ instead of .github/skills for a personal install. Commit .github/skills so cloud agent and code review can use it.
GitHub Copilot skills documentation · loads skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .github/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.GitHub Copilot copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a opencodeOpenCode documents no install command of its own. Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.config/opencode/skills/.
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills contextualisation-skill-builder --agent opencodeProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .opencode/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder .opencode/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.config/opencode/skills/ instead of .opencode/skills for a personal install.
OpenCode skills documentation · loads skills from .opencode/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "contextualisation-skill-builder" agent skill from https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder into .opencode/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "contextualisation-skill-builder", then confirm the skill loads.OpenCode copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
Facts
- Skill name
contextualisation-skill-builder- GitHub stars
- 830
- Token cost
- ~7.6k tokens
- SKILL.md length
- 2,871 words
- Files
- 1
- Skills in repo
- 142
- Repo updated
- First seen
- Licence
- Custom licence
At a glance
Build students' capacity to place historical documents in their temporal and social context.
- Works in 4 steps: What was happening at the time this… → Would this document have been different… → What problem or situation was the author… → …
- Students read sources without considering what was happening at the time
- 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
Contextualisation Skill Builder is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Build students' capacity to place historical documents in their temporal and social context. Use when students read sources without considering what was happening at the time, or know the context but don't deploy it.
Its SKILL.md is about 7.6k 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 Agent Workflows, covering Skill authoring. 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
- Students read sources without considering what was happening at the time
- Know the context but dont deploy it
Example prompts
- “/contextualisation-skill-builder”
Workflow steps
4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.
- What was happening at the time this document was created, and how might that shape what the author wrote?
- Would this document have been different if it had been written 20 years earlier or 20 years later? How and why?
- What problem or situation was the author responding to?
- What did the words in this document mean at the time — and is that different from what they mean now?
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
Contextualisation Skill Builder loads about 7.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 62 tokens; SKILL.md has 2,871 words of instructions outside code blocks.
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 2,871 words (~7,568 tokens).
“Designs targeted instruction to develop students' contextualisation practice — reasoning about how the temporal, spatial, and social circumstances of a document's creation shape its content, meaning, and reliability. The output includes a developmental progression, an explicit instruction sequence adapted for…”
- name
- contextualisation-skill-builder
- disable-model-invocation
- false
- user-invocable
- true
- effort
- medium
- skill_id
- historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder
- skill_name
- Contextualisation Skill Builder
- domain
- historical-thinking
- version
- 1.0
- contributor
- Sean Hu
- evidence_strength
- moderate
- evidence_sources
- Wineburg (2007) — Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking, Wineburg (1998) — Reading Abraham Lincoln: an expert/expert study in historical…
Files
Just SKILL.md in skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.
Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4
Compare with similar skills
Contextualisation Skill Builder 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.
| Skill | Stars | Used in | Tokens | Auto-check | Licence | Repo updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contextualisation Skill Builder this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills | 830 | — | ~7.6k | Automated safety check: Pass | Custom licence | |
| Build A Personal Skill From HistoryTHU-MAIC/OpenMAIC | 40k | — | ~678 | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| It Training Instructortheneoai/awesome-skills | 183 | — | ~2.5k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Skill CreatorAzure/azqr | 794 | 89 repos | ~8.2k | Automated safety check: Pass | Apache-2.0 | |
| Claude Code Skill Developer Guidediet103/claude-code-infrastructure-showcase | 10k | 10 repos | ~3.5k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Nuwa Thinking-Style Skill Builderalchaincyf/nuwa-skill | 34k | — | ~4.6k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT |
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Categories
Questions about Contextualisation Skill Builder
What does Contextualisation Skill Builder do?
Build students' capacity to place historical documents in their temporal and social context. Contextualisation Skill Builder is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Build students' capacity to place historical documents in their temporal and social context.
When should I use Contextualisation Skill Builder?
Contextualisation Skill Builder fits situations like: students read sources without considering what was happening at the time; know the context but dont deploy it.
How do I install Contextualisation Skill Builder in Claude Code?
Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.
How do I install Contextualisation Skill Builder in Codex?
Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill contextualisation-skill-builder -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/historical-thinking/contextualisation-skill-builder in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.
Can I use Contextualisation Skill Builder 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 contextualisation-skill-builder -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder, .gemini/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder, .github/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder and .opencode/skills/contextualisation-skill-builder in your project.
What does Contextualisation Skill Builder need to run?
SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Contextualisation Skill Builder is instructions for the agent only.
Does Contextualisation Skill Builder 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 Contextualisation Skill Builder 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 Contextualisation Skill Builder use?
Contextualisation Skill Builder 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 Contextualisation Skill Builder use?
About 7.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 30k 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 Contextualisation Skill Builder?
Skills that share tags, products or a category with Contextualisation Skill Builder: Build A Personal Skill From History (THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC, 40k stars), It Training Instructor (theneoai/awesome-skills, 183 stars), Skill Creator (Azure/azqr, 794 stars) and Claude Code Skill Developer Guide (diet103/claude-code-infrastructure-showcase, 10k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.
Who maintains Contextualisation Skill Builder?
GarethManning (a GitHub user) maintains it in GarethManning/education-agent-skills, which has 830 GitHub stars. The repository holds 142 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.