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Agent skill

Explain This

by tobihagemann in tobihagemann/turbo

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.

MITAuto-check passedWriting & Content

Install Explain This

skills CLI
$ npx skills add tobihagemann/turbo --skill explain-this -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install tobihagemann/turbo explain-this --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/tobihagemann/turbo.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/codex/skills/explain-this .claude/skills/explain-this && 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
explain-this
GitHub stars
409
Token cost
~1.2k tokens
SKILL.md length
584 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
81
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

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.

  • Works in 3 steps: Identify the Subject → Ground in State → Produce the Explanation
  • The user asks to explain this
  • SKILL.md covers Step 1: Identify the Subject, Step 2: Ground in State, Step 3: Produce the Explanation and Rules
  • Calls git

What it does

Explain This is an agent skill from tobihagemann/turbo. 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".

Its SKILL.md is about 1.2k 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 Writing & Content, covering Plain language and style rules. The repository describes itself as: Reusable workflows for planning, building, reviewing, and shipping with Claude Code and Codex. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • The user asks to explain this
  • What am I being asked
  • Whats happening right now
  • Help me understand this

Example prompts

  • “explain this”
  • “what am I being asked”
  • “s happening right now”
  • “/explain-this”

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Identify the Subject
  2. Ground in State
  3. Produce the Explanation

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 160a0fa. 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

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • git

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

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use git, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

    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

Explain This loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 108 tokens; SKILL.md has 584 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~108
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.2k

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

The full file from tobihagemann/turbo at commit 160a0fa, republished under its MIT licence (© tobihagemann). 584 words, ~1,152 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/explain-this/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
explain-this
description
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".

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

Read whatever makes the explanation concrete, no more:

  • Files the subject references
  • The active skill's SKILL.md when a skill-specific question is being asked
  • git status and git diff --stat when the subject involves staged or unstaged changes
  • Any artifact cited (plan, spec, findings, test plan, audit, PR, commit)

Step 3: Produce the Explanation

The reader is an experienced developer who may not be fluent in every tech stack or acronym but doesn't need concepts from first principles. Skip ELI5. Use plain language; strip skill-internal jargon, or define it inline when the jargon is what the user needs explained (for example, "P1 peer" becomes "priority 1 finding from the peer reviewer").

Go beyond "what this does" and surface the trade-offs: pros and cons per choice, benefits and costs, whether the thing reads as clean and elegant or redundant and overcomplicated. Be honest about red flags; be honest about solid work.

Shape the output to match the subject. Use the branch that applies; drop the rest.

Question with discrete options — restate the question plainly, then enumerate options using this template:

**What you're being asked:** <plain-language restatement>

### Your Options
**1. <label as shown>** — <concrete effect: files changed, next step, what is lost>
  - **Pros:** <what you gain>
  - **Cons:** <what it costs>
**2. <label>** — <concrete effect>
  - **Pros:** <...>
  - **Cons:** <...>

### When Each Fits
- Pick **<option>** if your goal is <goal>.
- Pick **<option>** if your goal is <other goal>.

Apply these option-specific rules:

  • Describe each option's real-world effect. Example:
    • Concrete: "Renames the module to auth-v2 and updates the 3 import sites in src/."
    • Too abstract: "Cleans up the auth code."
  • If an option was labelled "(Recommended)" in the original, repeat that label verbatim. Do not add a fresh recommendation.
  • If an option would skip a safety step (tests, review, a gate), call that out.
  • If the pending question was posed with a direct user question, re-invoke a user question after the explanation with the same question, header, and options so the user can answer inline without losing the dialog. Preserve any "(Recommended)" label verbatim. Otherwise (plain-text prompt from the assistant), end by noting the question is still pending and the user should reply to the original prompt directly.
Show full SKILL.md (157 more words)Show less

Free-form question — restate the question plainly, say what the answer will be used for (which file gets written, which step consumes it), and call out what makes a good answer versus a problematic one. End by noting the question is still pending.

Code, error, or command output — say what it does or means, likely cause or purpose, and what action is typically expected. Judge the design: is it clean and idiomatic, or are there smells like redundant guards, tangled control flow, or unnecessary abstraction?

Artifact (plan, findings, diff, PR) — summarize its contents, the decisions it represents, and what step comes next. Flag strengths and weaknesses: over-engineering, missing cases, clear wins.

Rules

  • Read-only. Do not modify files, stage changes, or answer a pending question on the user's behalf.
  • If an active skill's SKILL.md contradicts what the conversation shows, trust the conversation and note the discrepancy briefly.
  • If the subject cannot be identified at all, say so and stop.

© tobihagemann, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in codex/skills/explain-this of tobihagemann/turbo.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 160a0fa

Compare with similar skills

Explain This 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.

Explain This compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Explain This this skilltobihagemann/turbo409—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Asd Ste100danyuchn/asd-ste100-skill4.2k—~4.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Simple Issue Descriptionevery-app/open-seo23k1 repos~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Ponytail AuditDietrichGebert/ponytail159k—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Technical Writing Standardcursor/plugins10k10 repos~2.4kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Natural Japanese Business Writingcoji/natural-japanese1.9k—~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Explain This

What does Explain This do?

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. Explain This is an agent skill from tobihagemann/turbo. 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.

When should I use Explain This?

Explain This fits situations like: the user asks to explain this; what am I being asked; whats happening right now; help me understand this.

How do I install Explain This in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add tobihagemann/turbo --skill explain-this -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (codex/skills/explain-this in tobihagemann/turbo) into .claude/skills/explain-this in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Explain This in Codex?

Run `npx skills add tobihagemann/turbo --skill explain-this -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (codex/skills/explain-this in tobihagemann/turbo) into .agents/skills/explain-this in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Explain This 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 tobihagemann/turbo --skill explain-this -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/explain-this, .gemini/skills/explain-this, .github/skills/explain-this and .opencode/skills/explain-this in your project.

What does Explain This need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Explain This needs the command-line tools its instructions call (git).

Does Explain This access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Its commands use git, which can reach the network depending on how they are called. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Explain This 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 Explain This use?

Explain This is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Explain This use?

About 1.2k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 4.6k 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 Explain This?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Explain This: Asd Ste100 (danyuchn/asd-ste100-skill, 4.2k stars), Simple Issue Description (every-app/open-seo, 23k stars), Ponytail Audit (DietrichGebert/ponytail, 159k stars) and Technical Writing Standard (cursor/plugins, 10k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Explain This?

tobihagemann (a GitHub user) maintains it in tobihagemann/turbo, which has 409 GitHub stars. The repository holds 81 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 9, 2026.

Source: tobihagemann/turbo on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.