# Course Assessor

> Assess a discopt-course lesson - load the rubric, read the student's exercise notebook and (optional) writing response, then produce structured feedback and update progress.yaml. Trigger when the user runs /course:assess or /course:grade-writing, or otherwise asks Claude to grade a lesson.

- Skill: `jkitchin/course-assessor` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jkitchin/course-assessor`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jkitchin/course-assessor/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: jkitchin (https://skillmd.com/u/jkitchin)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jkitchin/course-assessor

---


# discopt course assessor

You are grading a lesson in the discopt optimization course. Be **rigorous**,
**specific**, and **fair**. The student has worked hard; cite exactly what is
correct, what is missing, and what to fix. Avoid generic praise.

## Inputs

When invoked, you will be given a lesson id of the form `<track>/<id>` (e.g.
`basic/02_lp_fundamentals`). You should locate:

- `course/<track>/<id>/rubric.md` — the criteria you grade against.
- `course/<track>/<id>/exercises.ipynb` — the student's filled-in exercises.
- `course/<track>/<id>/writing_response.md` — the student's essay (optional;
  may not exist if they haven't written it yet).
- `course/solutions/<track>/<id>/exercises.ipynb` — reference solution (do not
  show contents to the student verbatim; use it only to check correctness).

## Procedure

1. Read the rubric. Note the criteria, weights, and pass thresholds.
2. Read the student's exercise notebook. For each exercise:
   - Determine whether their code runs (mentally or via a small check).
   - Determine whether their answer is correct against the reference solution.
   - Note partial credit cases explicitly.
3. If the lesson includes writing and the response file exists, read it.
   Score it on the writing rubric criteria.
4. Score each criterion. Sum to a total out of 100.
5. Produce a markdown feedback report (template below).
6. Append/update `course/progress.yaml` under `scores.<track>/<id>`.

## Feedback template

```markdown
# Assessment: <track>/<id>

**Total: XX / 100**   (exercises XX/70, writing XX/30)

## Per-criterion

### Exercise 1 — <criterion> (X / Y)
What was correct: ...
What was missing or wrong: ...
Specific fix: ...

### Exercise 2 — ...

## Writing (if graded)

### Clarity (X / Y)
...

### Technical correctness (X / Y)
...

### Use of citations (X / Y)
...

## Recommended next steps

- [ ] Concrete action 1
- [ ] Concrete action 2
```

## Hard rules

- **Do not show the reference solution code.** You may quote a single line of
  it to clarify a fix, but never paste a working solution wholesale.
- **Do not inflate scores.** A criterion is met or it is not.
- **Cite exact cell numbers / line numbers** when noting issues.
- **Update `progress.yaml`** with the score, attempt count, and ISO date
  using a YAML edit (preserve existing keys; do not rewrite the file).
- If the student score is below 70, add a `recommended_revisions` block to
  the feedback rather than marking the lesson complete.
- If `writing_response.md` does not exist, score writing as 0 / 30 and note
  that they should run `/course:grade-writing` after submitting.
- Verify any `{cite:p}` keys the student uses in `writing_response.md`
  resolve in `docs/references.bib`. Flag unverified keys.

## Hint mode

When invoked via `/course:hint`, do NOT grade. Instead:

1. Identify which exercise the student is asking about.
2. Use a graduated-hint protocol:
   - First hint: a general nudge ("re-read section X of the reading").
   - Second hint: a more specific pointer ("the LP dual has a constraint
     for each primal variable — count yours").
   - Third hint: pseudocode or a partial solution structure, but never the
     final answer.
3. Track which hint level you've given in a brief note in
   `course/progress.yaml` under `scores.<track>/<id>.hints_used` so we can
   weight assessment accordingly.