🛸 ask-neila

Point it at a file — or a whole folder — and friendly alien characters explain it in dead-simple language as a colorful illustrated picture. Hand Neila a folder and she maps how the files connect and explains the whole story.

A real ask-neila explainer. You give it a hard topic; Neila gives back this.

ask-neila is a Claude Code skill. Its main job is reading your files — PDFs, slides, spreadsheets, photos, notes — pulling out the few ideas that actually matter, rewriting each in plain words with a concrete analogy, and drawing a single picture you can download. Starring Neila the alien and her alien dog Pip, plus a cast of 100+ topic-themed guests. Pasted text works too, but files are the point.

The real value is the simplification. Neila is built on a strict pedagogy method (EXPLAIN.md) that turns expert jargon into something a 10-year-old explains back to a friend. The aliens are the wrapper that makes it stick.

Example

You give it this:

"Compound interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum of a deposit, so that interest in subsequent periods is earned on the accumulated interest of prior periods, formally A = P(1 + r/n)^(nt)."

Neila gives back this (anchor → plain idea → analogy → why you'd care):

🛸 Neila: "You know how a snowball gets bigger as it rolls down a hill — and the bigger it gets, the faster it grows? Money can do that. The bank pays you a little extra just for keeping your money there (that's interest). The clever bit: next year you earn extra on the extra too, so the pile grows itself. Give it enough time and a small sum snowballs into a fortune — £100 can quietly become over £1,000. That's why people say the best time to start saving was years ago."

Same fact. One a 10-year-old repeats at dinner; the other they skip. Then it's drawn — exactly the picture above.

More demos

Folder mode — hand it a whole folder, Neila finds the through-line:

Tutor mode — "I don't get it" gets a different explanation, not a louder one:

🧑 "I still don't get the snowball thing." 🛸 Neila: "Okay, sports version: it's like a winning streak. Win once, you're slightly more confident — that confidence helps you win again, which builds even more confidence. Money does that with itself: last year's gains start earning their own gains. No hill required."

What it does

/ask-neila <paste a paragraph here>      # explain pasted text
/ask-neila path/to/lecture.pdf           # explain a PDF (scanned too)
/ask-neila path/to/slides.pptx           # explain a PowerPoint
/ask-neila path/to/data.xlsx             # explain a spreadsheet (or .csv)
/ask-neila path/to/whiteboard.jpg        # explain a photo / screenshot / notes
/ask-neila path/to/notes.md              # explain a markdown/text file
/ask-neila path/to/folder/               # read a whole folder & connect the dots
/ask-neila path/to/lecture.pdf --md      # also export an AI-readable .md

Inputs: single files or a whole folder — text, .md, .txt, .csv, .pdf (incl. scanned), .pptx, .xlsx/.xls, and images (.png/.jpg/.jpeg/.webp/.gif — diagrams, handwritten notes, screenshots, photographed pages).

Folder mode: hand Neila a folder and she reads every file, builds a map of how they connect (shared ideas, what builds on what, contradictions), draws that map, and explains the through-line — the story the files tell together. For big folders she leans on the graphify skill rather than reinventing the graph.

Outputs: the picture (for humans), an optional markdown twin (for AIs), and an optional one-page cheat-sheet (dense, exam-ready revision reference).

Tutor mode — Neila doesn't give up on you

Neila isn't a one-shot. After the first explainer, just talk to her:

• "I don't get it" → she regenerates with a different approach — a fresh analogy, a simpler level, smaller baby-steps, or a clearer redraw. Never the same words louder.
• Depth dial → "explain like I'm 5 / a teenager / an expert." Same topic, re-pitched to your level.
• "Why?" → pick a concept and she peels back a layer, staying concrete, as deep as you want to go.
• "Another analogy?" → two more from different everyday domains (sport, cooking, money…) so one is bound to click.

For each input, Neila:

1. Extracts the text (reusing Claude's built-in pdf / pptx skills for documents).
2. Distills 3–6 core concepts, each as a plain one-liner + an everyday analogy.
3. Picks the layout from the content — a comic strip for step-by-step ideas, one poster for overviews.
4. Draws it as a colorful animated SVG, held to a world-class quality bar.
5. Renders it inline with a download button, so you walk away with the picture.

The cast

• Neila — the host. A teal three-eyed alien ("alien" backwards) who does the explaining.
• Pip — her loyal one-eyed alien dog, who reacts to every concept.
• 100+ guests — a parametric "alien forge" (bodies × eyes × antennae × limbs × props × hues) plus a named roster of explainers, pets, and wild alien animals, each tagged with what it's best for. Explaining gravity? Neila summons Gravix. Chemistry? Quib. See cast.md.

Install

This is a Claude Code skill. Clone it into your skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/Alay-Merchant/ask-neila.git ~/.claude/skills/ask-neila

Then in Claude Code, type /ask-neila followed by your text or a file path.

Requires the visualize tool (for rendering) and, for documents, the pdf / pptx skills. Scanned/image-only PDFs aren't supported yet.

Files

file	what it is
SKILL.md	the pipeline Claude follows
EXPLAIN.md	the pedagogy method — how complex ideas become 10-year-old-simple (the core value)
characters.md	reusable SVG for the stars, Neila & Pip
cast.md	the alien forge + 100+ named guest roster
QUALITY.md	the world-class rubric every render is held to

Contributing

Ideas welcome — new cast members (name + recipe + "best for"), quality-bar improvements, or new input types. Open an issue or PR.

License

MIT © Alay Merchant

Built With

• claude