cognitive-load

Separates the cognitive load a task needs from the load a code base's structure adds, and names the change that removes the second.

Install

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add Akurganow/ai-plugins
/plugin install cognitive-load@ai-plugins

Source: Claude Code documentation, https://code.claude.com/docs/en/discover-plugins.

Codex

codex plugin marketplace add Akurganow/ai-plugins --ref main
codex plugin add cognitive-load@ai-plugins

Source: Codex documentation, https://developers.openai.com/plugins/build/plugins, for marketplace add; Codex source, plugin_cmd.rs, for plugin add.

Oh-My-Pi

omp plugin marketplace add Akurganow/ai-plugins
omp plugin install cognitive-load@ai-plugins

Source: Oh-My-Pi documentation, docs/marketplace.md.

Hermes

hermes plugins install Akurganow/ai-plugins/plugins/cognitive-load --no-enable
hermes plugins list
hermes plugins enable cognitive-load

Keep the plugins/cognitive-load suffix: without it Hermes copies the whole repository, and its two-level scan finds no package.

Source: Hermes documentation, developer-guide/plugins/index.md, for the commands; Hermes source, plugins_cmd.py (_resolve_git_url), for the subdirectory form and what happens without it.

Usage

Name the task and the place where readers struggle:

New hires take weeks to fix their first bug in our billing service.
Find what makes the code hard to follow.

The extraneous skill first fixes the reader and the task, and opens its reply with one sentence that states them. It asks where the last newcomer got stuck, and for how long. For each place, it counts what the reader must hold at once and sorts each element as intrinsic or extraneous. It names the section of Zakirullin's catalogue that explains each extraneous element. It gives the change that removes it, and the cost of the change with the role that pays it. It asks for a check with a newcomer and ends with a "Not covered:" line.

What's inside

Path	What it is
`skills/extraneous/SKILL.md`	the procedure: reader and task, observations, count and sort, catalogue, measures, recommendation, check
`skills/extraneous/references/theory.md`	cognitive load theory as read: origin, two loads, capacity, element interactivity, the effects, and where the theory stops
`skills/extraneous/references/patterns.md`	the essay's catalogue, section by section in its own words, with what to look for
`skills/extraneous/references/measures.md`	Cognitive Complexity, Intrinsic Complexity Points, and what the studies of programmers found
`skills/extraneous/references/sources.md`	for each reference, the public copy and commit it rests on, whether only its abstract was open, and what stays unread
`plugin.json`	the Agent Plugins 1.0.0 manifest
`.claude-plugin/plugin.json`	a byte-identical copy of `plugin.json` at the one manifest path Claude Code documents (documentation, "Plugin manifest schema")
`LICENSE`	the MIT license

The package has no script, hook, rule file or network access.

The catalogue is Artem Zakirullin's essay "Cognitive load is what matters", under CC BY 4.0. sources.md records the essay as read whole at the commit it names, and the theory mostly as abstracts. sources.md records, for each paper, whether it rests on the abstract, the full text or nothing.

Boundaries

Cognitive load theory is a theory of learning, and its studies established its effects on instructional material. The skill applies them to code as analogies and says so. The essay uses "cognitive load" in an informal sense, and the skill keeps that distinction.
The skill counts what you show it. It does not read a code base on its own, run a linter, or measure a reader.
An interface as wide as what it hides, or one change that touches many places, belongs to the red-flags skill of design-review. A trade-off between two measured qualities belongs to contradiction in triz. Many complaints with one unclear cause belong to root-cause in toc-thinking. The skill hands over only to a skill that is installed.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Help

See SUPPORT.md.