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Cognitive Load Theory

Category: General  ·  Sub-category: education-learning  ·  Last updated:
Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) for agents writing skill content, designing prompts, building UI/dashboards, and authoring documentation. Working memory holds roughly 4 chunks at a time; CLT classifies load into three types — intrinsic (irreducible task difficulty), extraneous (unnecessary load from poor presentation, ELIMINATE), and germane (load that builds schemas, PROMOTE). Use when writing a SKILL.md body (does this section add extraneous load?), designing prompts (am I asking the model to hold too much at once?), building dashboards (what is the per-screen cognitive budget?), or authoring docs (is intrinsic load minimized via segmentation?). Do NOT use for retrieval and context-loading design (use context-management), prompt engineering tactics (use prompt-craft), or instructional design beyond what grounds the theory.

What this skill does

Cognitive Load Theory is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the education-learning sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/cognitive-load-theory/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use when writing a SKILL.md body (does this section add extraneous load?), designing prompts (am I asking the model to hold too much at once?), building dashboards (what is the per-screen cognitive budget?), or authoring docs (is intrinsic load minimized via segmentation?).

Who uses this skill

The Cognitive Load Theory Claude Code skill is built for Claude Code users and developers across all disciplines looking for general-purpose AI assistance. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 69,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/cognitive-load-theory
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/cognitive-load-theory/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/cognitive-load-theory/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/cognitive-load-theory/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/cognitive-load-theory/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\cognitive-load-theory\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

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See pricing → Download desktop app

Attribution & license

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Browse all General skills in the ClaudSkills registry, or explore these other picks from the same category:

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Part of ClaudSkills — the open registry for Claude Skills & Claude Code Skills.  ·  What's New  ·  Install guide  ·  About  ·  llms.txt

Part of Acreator Store — Adam Lankamer's AI tools: PerfectStudio · Ucaption · UTagger · AutoXPoster · TestYourSkills · AutomationFlows · Au Naturel

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