Agent skill

Vocabulary Tiering Tool

by GarethManning in GarethManning/education-agent-skills

Tier vocabulary from a text or topic into everyday, academic, and technical categories with teaching priorities.

Custom licenceAuto-check passedEducation

Install Vocabulary Tiering Tool

skills CLI
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill vocabulary-tiering-tool -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills vocabulary-tiering-tool --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/eal-language-development/vocabulary-tiering-tool .claude/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool && 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
vocabulary-tiering-tool
GitHub stars
840
Token cost
~5.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,761 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
160
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

Tier vocabulary from a text or topic into everyday, academic, and technical categories with teaching priorities.

  • Works in 6 steps: factor — without this, the entire topic… → significant — appears throughout and… → infrastructure — essential for… → …
  • Pre-teaching vocabulary
  • 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

Vocabulary Tiering Tool is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Tier vocabulary from a text or topic into everyday, academic, and technical categories with teaching priorities. Use when pre-teaching vocabulary or identifying language barriers in a text.

Its SKILL.md is about 5.3k 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

  • Pre-teaching vocabulary
  • Identifying language barriers in a text

Example prompts

  • “/vocabulary-tiering-tool”

Workflow steps

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

  1. factor — without this, the entire topic framework (push/pull factors) is inaccessible
  2. significant — appears throughout and needed for student writing
  3. infrastructure — essential for understanding urbanisation challenges
  4. consequently — needed for cause-effect explanations in writing
  5. inadequate — key evaluative word for describing urban challenges
  6. migration — core concept word bridging Tier 2 and 3

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

Vocabulary Tiering Tool loads about 5.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 53 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,761 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
~5.3k

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 1,761 words (~5,273 tokens).

“Takes a text extract or topic and tiers all significant vocabulary into Tier 1 (everyday), Tier 2 (academic, cross-subject), and Tier 3 (technical, subject-specific), then generates a prioritised teaching sequence focusing on Tier 2 words — the high-utility academic words…”

— opening of SKILL.md by GarethManning, Custom licence
name
vocabulary-tiering-tool
disable-model-invocation
false
user-invocable
true
effort
medium
skill_id
eal-language-development/vocabulary-tiering-tool
skill_name
Vocabulary Tiering Tool
domain
eal-language-development
version
1.0
evidence_strength
strong
evidence_sources
Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2002, 2013) — Bringing Words to Life: robust vocabulary instruction, Nation (2001) — Learning Vocabulary in Another Language, Coxhead…
output_schema.type
object

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/eal-language-development/vocabulary-tiering-tool of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4

Compare with similar skills

Vocabulary Tiering Tool 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.

Vocabulary Tiering Tool compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Vocabulary Tiering Tool this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills840—~5.3kAutomated 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool

What does Vocabulary Tiering Tool do?

Tier vocabulary from a text or topic into everyday, academic, and technical categories with teaching priorities. Vocabulary Tiering Tool is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Tier vocabulary from a text or topic into everyday, academic, and technical categories with teaching priorities.

When should I use Vocabulary Tiering Tool?

Vocabulary Tiering Tool fits situations like: pre-teaching vocabulary; identifying language barriers in a text.

How do I install Vocabulary Tiering Tool in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill vocabulary-tiering-tool -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/eal-language-development/vocabulary-tiering-tool in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Vocabulary Tiering Tool in Codex?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill vocabulary-tiering-tool -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/eal-language-development/vocabulary-tiering-tool in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Vocabulary Tiering Tool 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 vocabulary-tiering-tool -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool, .gemini/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool, .github/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool and .opencode/skills/vocabulary-tiering-tool in your project.

What does Vocabulary Tiering Tool need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Vocabulary Tiering Tool is instructions for the agent only.

Does Vocabulary Tiering Tool 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool use?

Vocabulary Tiering Tool 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool use?

About 5.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 21k 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Vocabulary Tiering Tool: 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 Vocabulary Tiering Tool?

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.