BrainLift Writer Skill

BrainLift Writer is an AI-agnostic skill for turning research, notes, and rough thinking into a structured BrainLift: a reusable context document that helps any AI model understand the author's mental model quickly.

It is based on the BrainLift pattern of moving from purpose and scope to DOK 2 knowledge trees, DOK 3 insights, and DOK 4 spiky points of view.

What This Helps With

• Draft a BrainLift from messy notes, transcripts, articles, or research dumps
• Improve an existing BrainLift so it has stronger structure and sharper synthesis
• Audit whether a BrainLift has clear scope, evidence, insights, and defensible POVs
• Create portable context that works across Codex, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini, and other AI tools
• Keep AI focused on organizing and sharpening human thinking instead of replacing it

Repository Layout

brainlift-writer-skill/
|-- assets/
|   `-- brainlift-writer-banner.png
|-- brainlift-writer/
|   |-- SKILL.md
|   |-- agents/
|   |   `-- openai.yaml
|   `-- references/
|       `-- brainlift-template.md
|-- README.md
`-- LICENSE

The installable skill lives in brainlift-writer/. The root README exists for GitHub users and is not part of the skill payload.

Install For Codex

Copy the skill folder into your Codex skills directory:

cp -R brainlift-writer ~/.codex/skills/

Then invoke it with:

Use $brainlift-writer to turn these notes into a BrainLift.

Use With Any AI Tool

This skill is intentionally portable. For Claude Projects, ChatGPT custom GPTs, Cursor rules, or other agents:

1. Copy the contents of brainlift-writer/SKILL.md into the tool's instruction area.
2. Add brainlift-writer/references/brainlift-template.md as supporting reference material.
3. Ask the model to draft, revise, or audit a BrainLift using those instructions.

Example prompt:

Use the BrainLift Writer instructions to turn the notes below into a BrainLift. Keep facts, summaries, insights, and spiky POVs clearly separated. Mark gaps instead of inventing evidence.

What Makes A Good BrainLift

A strong BrainLift is not just a summary. It is structured context that captures how the author thinks about a domain.

The skill pushes the model to:

• Start with a clear purpose and explicit scope boundaries
• Build a DOK 2 knowledge tree from source-level facts and summaries
• Convert that foundation into DOK 3 original insights
• Synthesize DOK 4 spiky points of view that are strong, useful, and defensible
• Preserve uncertainty and source provenance

GitHub Description

AI-agnostic skill for writing BrainLifts: structured context docs that turn research into DOK knowledge trees, insights, and spiky POVs.

Suggested GitHub Topics

ai, ai-agents, brainlift, knowledge-management, personal-knowledge-management, pkm, prompt-engineering, context-engineering, learning-science, depth-of-knowledge, dok, knowledge-synthesis, writing, research, spiky-pov, ai-skills, codex-skill, claude, chatgpt, cursor

Source Inspiration

This package was created from the shared Nessie context "BrainLift: The Complete Template", then rewritten as portable agent instructions.