Curriculum Designer Skill

Turn your rough course ideas into structured curriculums and technical delivery plans.

The curriculum-designer is a powerful agentic skill for Gemini CLI and Claude Code. It acts as an expert instructional designer, interviewing you to build high-quality educational content and then generating the technical roadmap to build it.

📦 Installation & Setup

Choose your platform below:

Option A: Gemini CLI

Prerequisites

Install Node.js: Download and install the latest LTS version from nodejs.org.
Install Gemini CLI:
```
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli
```

Install the Skill

npm install -g @weihaoqu/curriculum-designer-skill

Register with Gemini CLI

# From your local NPM installation (Best for Mac)
gemini skills install $(npm root -g)/@weihaoqu/curriculum-designer-skill --scope user

# Or directly from GitHub (Works for Windows & Mac)
gemini skills install https://github.com/weihaoqu/gemini-curriculum-designer --scope user

Verify Installation

gemini skills list

You should see curriculum-designer in the output.

Activate in Session

If you are already in a chat session, reload the skills:

/skills reload

Option B: Claude Code

Prerequisites

Install Claude Code: Follow the installation guide at claude.ai/claude-code.

Install the Skill

Method 1: Via NPM (Recommended)

npm install -g @weihaoqu/curriculum-designer-skill

The skill is automatically installed to ~/.claude/skills/ during npm install.

If you need to reinstall manually:

curriculum-designer-install

Method 2: Manual Download

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/curriculum-designer.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/weihaoqu/gemini-curriculum-designer/main/SKILL.md

Verify Installation

Start a new Claude Code session and the skill will be available. You can ask:

Help me design a curriculum for [your topic]

🧠 How It Works

The skill adapts to your situation—whether creating from scratch or enhancing existing materials.

Two Modes

Agent: What would you like to do?

       [Create new curriculum from scratch]
       [Enhance existing course materials]
       [Update outdated content with latest practices]
       [Add new delivery format to existing curriculum]

Mode A: Enhance Existing Materials

Already have a course? The skill becomes your upgrade assistant:

User: "I have slides from my 2022 Python course. Help me update it."

Agent: [Reads your existing materials]
       [Analyzes content inventory]
       [Researches what's changed since 2022]

       ## Course Analysis
       ✅ Current: Data types, functions, OOP basics
       ⚠️ Needs update: Package management (pip → uv/poetry)
       ❌ Outdated: Python 3.8 examples (now at 3.12)
       💡 Missing: Type hints, async/await, match statements

       ## What's New in Python (2024-2025)
       🆕 Pattern matching is now widely adopted
       🆕 Type hints are expected in production code
       ⚠️ setup.py is deprecated; use pyproject.toml

       Which enhancements would you like?
       [Update outdated content] [Add new modules] [Refresh examples]
       [Add new delivery format] [Enhance assessments]

Mode B: Create New Curriculum

Starting fresh? The skill researches, designs, and builds:

User: "I want to create a course on Kubernetes for DevOps engineers."

Agent: [Researches latest K8s trends, tools, certifications]

       ## Topic Landscape: Kubernetes (2025)
       Current Trends: GitOps, Platform Engineering, AI/ML workloads
       Essential Tools: Helm, ArgoCD, Crossplane
       Certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS

       [Proposes complete modules with lessons, activities, assessments]
       [Approve] [Modify] [Start over]

Assessment Design

The skill generates complete, ready-to-use assessments:

Type	What You Get
Quizzes	Questions, answer keys, explanations, rubrics
Labs	Instructions, starter code, grading criteria, solutions
Projects	Milestones, deliverables, detailed rubrics
Peer Reviews	Structured feedback forms, evaluation criteria

Agent: Generated assessments.md with:
       - 5 module quizzes (20 questions each)
       - 4 hands-on labs with autograder tests
       - 1 midterm project with milestone rubrics
       - 1 capstone with peer review forms

Delivery Templates

Choose your format and get production-ready templates:

Format	What’s Generated
Slide Decks	Reveal.js/Markdown slides with speaker notes
Jupyter Notebooks	Interactive notebooks with exercises and solutions
LMS Package	Canvas/Moodle-ready export structure
Video Scripts	Full scripts with timestamps, visuals, B-roll cues
GitHub Repo	Complete course repository structure

Agent: Which delivery formats do you need?
       [Interactive Web App] [Slide Decks] [Jupyter Notebooks]
       [LMS Package] [Video Scripts] [GitHub Repository]

User: Slides + Jupyter Notebooks

Agent: [Generates slide deck for each module]
       [Creates interactive notebooks with exercises]
       [Provides setup instructions for both]

🏆 Case Study: Building the “CS336 Portal”

We used this skill to build a complete course on Program Analysis for Security & Privacy.

The Challenge

We needed to teach complex topics like Static Taint Analysis, Symbolic Execution, and Control-Flow Integrity to advanced students.

The Process

Research & Planning: The skill researched current program analysis tools and techniques, suggesting we include modern frameworks like CodeQL alongside traditional theory.
Curriculum Design: Approved 9 rigorous modules with rich content—the skill generated complete lesson plans with explanations, exercises, and assessments.
Implementation: Chose “Interactive Web App” delivery. The skill generated the full tech stack (Next.js + Monaco Editor + React Flow) and helped build interactive components.

The Result

A fully functional educational portal with:

Interactive code visualizations
Hands-on labs (Lattice Visualizer, Cache Simulator)
Complete curriculum content

👉 View the Implementation: github.com/weihaoqu/paprojectsimplementation

🛠️ Platform-Specific Features

Claude Code (Recommended)

Claude Code unlocks the full potential of this skill:

Feature	How It Works
Smart Questions	Uses `AskUserQuestion` for structured, clickable choices
Topic Research	Uses `WebSearch` to find latest trends, tools, and resources
Material Analysis	Reads and analyzes your existing course files
Complete Proposals	Presents full module designs for approval, not piecemeal questions
Assessment Generation	Creates quizzes, labs, projects with rubrics and solutions
Delivery Templates	Generates slides, notebooks, LMS packages, video scripts
Implementation	Actually builds your course—creates files, writes code, sets up projects

Gemini CLI

Uses shorthand notation for quick responses (i, b, a, e, c, s)
Text-based interview flow
Research features depend on available tools

Claude API (Advanced)

For programmatic use with the Claude API, the repository includes:

claude_tool_definition.json: A JSON schema defining the curriculum design tool.
claude_system_prompt.md: A system prompt containing the pedagogical logic.

You can use these with the Anthropic Workbench or Claude API directly.

Changelog

v1.1.1 (2025-02-03)

Easy Install for Claude Code - Running npm install -g now automatically installs the skill to ~/.claude/skills/
Added curriculum-designer-install command for manual reinstallation

v1.1.0 (2025-02-03)

New Features:

Claude Code Support - Full compatibility with AskUserQuestion, WebSearch, and other Claude Code tools
Mode A: Enhance Existing Materials - Analyze existing courses, research what’s changed, apply targeted updates
Assessment Templates - Complete templates for quizzes, labs, projects, and peer reviews with rubrics
Delivery Templates - Production-ready templates for slides, Jupyter notebooks, LMS packages, video scripts, and GitHub repos

Improvements:

Streamlined workflow with complete module proposals instead of piecemeal questions
Proactive topic research before curriculum design
Changelog tracking for course updates

v1.0.x

Initial release for Gemini CLI
Basic curriculum design workflow
Prerequisite and core concept analysis

License

MIT