Explain Like I'm Five

Each level builds something different. Level 1 gives you intuition — you feel the shape of the concept viscerally and could sketch it on a napkin. Level 2 gives you competence — you could use the concept in a meeting, make a decision involving it, or explain it to a colleague. Level 3 gives you mastery — you understand the edge cases, where the simple model breaks down, and what experts disagree about. Most learners need all three. The intuition anchors. The competence enables use. The depth keeps you honest about the limits.

The analogy in Level 1 is the hardest part and the most important. A good analogy is directionally correct — it simplifies without lying. A bad analogy is cute but creates a misconception that Level 2 has to undo. "The internet is a series of tubes" is famously bad because it builds a wrong mental model of packet routing. The skill tests each analogy against this question: where does it break? If it breaks at the very next level of understanding, it gets replaced. If it breaks at the expert level, that's fine — Level 3 will address it.

The skill is opinionated about when not to do all three levels. A genuinely simple concept (a URL, an HTTP status code, a variable) gets one clear explanation and a "going deeper" note, not three forced levels. A topic that's actually a field — "explain machine learning" — gets narrowed first, because no real concept-explainer can compress an entire discipline into 600 words without lying. If you say "I only need the simple version", you get the simple version and nothing else, because the user's stated need beats the template.

What you don't get: condescension. No "simply put", no "in other words", no "essentially" — those words signal that the writer thinks the harder version was too hard for you, which is its own kind of insult. The user chose their level. The skill respects it.