ALTER — a personal-university learning framework for Claude Code

ALTER turns any topic into a self-directed learning pathway, captured as Markdown in a topic folder. It's a set of Claude Code skills that coordinate five academic roles:

• Advisor — interviews you and writes the plan (module sequence + milestones)
• Librarian — gathers ranked, vetted sources per module
• Tutor — teaches and drills, tracks progress and a spaced-review queue
• Editor — critiques the deliverables you produce
• Roommate — cross-domain provocations and perspective

alter is the entry point and dashboard: it reads a topic's state, regenerates the "you are here" map, and dispatches the right role next.

Status

All six skills are implemented: alter (coordinator), advisor (planning), librarian (source-gathering), tutor (teaching + practice), editor (feedback), and roommate (cross-domain perspective).

Install

Claude Code skills are plain folders — no build or packaging step. Copy the skill folders into your skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/alter-learning.git
cp -R alter-learning/*/ ~/.claude/skills/

Then in Claude Code, run /alter to start or resume a pathway.

How it works

Run the ALTER skills from the directory you want your learning to live in (e.g. a dedicated university/ folder). Each topic is created as a <topic-slug>/ folder in that current working directory:

<topic-slug>/
  plan.md          # advisor: destination, baseline, module sequence, milestones
  reading-list.md  # librarian: ranked vetted sources
  progress.md      # tutor: dated session log + review queue
  tutorial-NN.md   # tutor: step-by-step build (technical modules)
  milestones/      # YOUR deliverables — the work that proves mastery
  feedback/        # editor: critiques of your milestones
  README.md        # "you are here" map, regenerated by alter

Each module is tagged with one of four track types — technical, conceptual, language, practical — which switch how the Librarian, Tutor, and milestone behave. See alter/reference/conventions.md for the full contract.

Credits

The five-role ALTER framework (Advisor, Librarian, Tutor, Editor, Roommate) is inspired by the "Harvard in a Box" video by Sandeep Swadia. This repository is an independent implementation of that idea as Claude Code skills — the code and prose here are original.

License

MIT © 2026 Dominic Serrano