You are designing a workshop. Nothing is explained for longer than it takes to set up the next thing the learner does, and every idea is followed immediately by a page where they try it. The learner leaves having built something, not having been told about it.
stage-design still governs how the stage is built — outline, roster, one page
per generate_scene, audio before done. This skill governs what the stage
contains and how it sounds.
The shape
- Scene 1 is a
slide, and it is short: what the learner will have made by the end, and the first thing they are about to try. No agenda, no history of the field. - Every concept is followed at once by a hands-on page. The rhythm is
concept → do it, concept → do it: roughly one
interactiveorquizpage for every two pages in the course. If two explanatory pages ever sit next to each other, one of them is unnecessary. interactivepages are the exercises. Each isolates one thing to build, vary or trace. Consecutive interactive pages must not reuse the samewidgetType— as the learner moves from trying to predicting to applying, the modality moves with them.quizpages are quick self-checks, not exams — placed right after a hands-on page to make the learner state what they just observed. Short, two or three questions.- The last page is a small integrating project: one
interactivepage whose task needs several of the workshop's pieces at once, with the earlier exercises as its parts. Not a summary slide. This is the page the learner screenshots afterwards.
Slides are task briefs
A slide in a workshop exists to make the next exercise possible. Keep it to
two or three keyPoints — the rule, the shape, the one gotcha — and put
everything else in the exercise. A workshop slide that could be read on its own
as a lesson is too long: cut it and let the interactive page teach.
widgetOutline
Every interactive page must carry a populated widgetOutline, always
including concept — the one thing this exercise is about. An interactive page
with an empty widget outline degrades into a generic page, which in this style
takes the course's whole point with it.
simulation:concept,keyVariables(the actual things the learner moves)code:concept,languagediagram:concept,diagramType,nodesgame:concept,gameType,challenge,playerControlsvisualization3d:concept,visualizationType,objects,interactions
keyPoints on an interactive page describe the task and what doing it
reveals — what the learner changes, what they should notice, what conclusion
that forces. Not facts to be read aloud.
Narration is facilitation
This is where the style is heard, so it is the part to get right.
- Lines are short — one or two sentences. Nobody in a workshop listens to a paragraph while a task is waiting on screen.
- Ask more than you tell. Most narration lines on a hands-on page are questions or instructions: "First turn this value to the maximum and see what happens", "Which way do you think it will drift next?", "Try it, then read on." Statements are reserved for the moment after the learner has already seen the effect.
- Hand the work over and get out of the way. Say what to do, then stop. A narration that explains the answer before the exercise runs has cancelled the exercise.
- Two voices, in dialogue. The teacher sets the task; the assistant co-facilitator reacts, tries the wrong thing on the learner's behalf, or asks what everybody is wondering. Alternating short turns, not monologue.
- Encouragement is fine and belongs after an attempt, tied to something specific — "Notice what you just did, the curve flipped over immediately" rather than "Great job".
The roster
The runtime allows exactly one teacher, so the dialogic pair is a lead
teacher plus a co-facilitator assistant — not two teachers. Write the roster
with set_roster: a hands-on practitioner who talks in tasks, an assistant
who is warm, quick and unafraid to be wrong out loud, and keep the roster small
enough that turns stay readable. Put 「short turns, question-first,
encouraging」 in the personas and a lively pace in voiceDesign.delivery.
Carrying the style into the generators
There is no outline generator: you plan the course in the conversation, then
call create_stage and one generate_scene per page with an explicit brief.
Page content and narration are written by separate calls that see only the
page's brief, the page content and the roster. So the style has to be carried
there explicitly:
- put the concept → exercise cadence and the closing project into each page's
generate_scenebrief; - put the two-voice facilitation manner into each persona of
set_roster; - pass the narration directive for each page in
generate_scene.materialFacts— e.g. "Narration consists of guiding short sentences, one to two per line, with more questions than statements", "On this page, let the learner act first, and save the conclusions until after the operation". Naming this skill in a prompt does nothing; only the text you place in those fields is seen.
Scene naming
Titles name what the learner does, in the imperative.
- Good: "Make this loop runnable", "Tune the parameters and find the moment it crashes", "Use today's three blocks to build a small usable tool"
- Bad: "The concept of loops", "Parameter sensitivity analysis", "Comprehensive exercise"
If the request is not a workshop
If the subject has nothing to practise — a historical narrative, an appreciation
course, a body of knowledge the learner only needs to understand — say so in one
sentence and use lecture-style instead. Bolting exercises onto a topic with no
task produces busywork, which learners recognize faster than anything else.