# Claude Code's ELI5 Skill Explained: How It Works, Setup, and When to Use It

> Source: <https://dev.to/gridport/claude-codes-eli5-skill-explained-how-it-works-setup-and-when-to-use-it-c6>
> Published: 2026-08-25 04:50:28+00:00

*This article reflects Claude Code's spec as of August 2026. Since Claude Code updates frequently, check the official docs for the latest behavior.*

Type `/eli5 <topic>`

into Claude Code, and the ELI5 skill generates a jargon-free, diagram-heavy HTML explainer on the spot.

It went viral in August 2026 after Anthropic's own dev team mentioned they use it internally.

This post covers how ELI5 works, how to install it, what happened when we pointed it at one of our own technical topics, and what to watch out for before using it at work.

"ELI5" stands for "Explain Like I'm 5." Type `/eli5 <topic>`

in Claude Code, and it produces a single HTML artifact (Claude's panel-style output format) aimed at someone with zero background on the topic, built from big visuals and minimal text.

Unlike a normal chat reply, which tends to come back as a wall of text, the output is locked to three constraints:

The skill was published by Thariq Shihipar of the Claude Code team, who introduced it on X on August 21, 2026 as "a skill people at Anthropic have been using a lot lately." It's distributed through the community marketplace `anthropics/claude-plugins-community`

.

Looking at ELI5's [SKILL.md](https://github.com/DreambigOu/ELI5/blob/main/skills/eli5/SKILL.md), there's a mismatch between the `description`

field, which controls when the skill triggers, and the body text, which actually shapes the output:

```
---
name: eli5
description: Explain a topic like I'm a 5 year old. Use when the user types /eli5 <topic> or asks for a dead-simple picture explainer of how something works.
---

# eli5

Explain like I'm someone who knows nothing about this topic, using a HTML artifact with big pictures and few words.

Topic: $ARGUMENTS
```

The `description`

still says "like a 5-year-old," but the body, the part that actually drives the model, has been changed to "**someone who knows nothing about this topic**."

That's a deliberate choice: literally targeting a 5-year-old's vocabulary tends to tank explanation accuracy, so the body is tuned instead toward "strip out assumed background knowledge" rather than "talk like you're speaking to a child."

You can install ELI5 through Claude Code's plugin system in two commands. The plugin itself is distributed free under the MIT license (Claude Code usage still follows your existing plan's pricing).

```
# 1. Add the community marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community

# 2. Install eli5 (specify the marketplace after @)
claude plugin install eli5@claude-community
```

Check that it installed correctly:

```
claude plugin list
eli5@claude-community
Version: 1.0.0
Scope: user
Status: enabled
```

Just follow `/eli5`

with whatever you want explained:

```
/eli5 how does RAG actually work
/eli5 how does auth work in this project
/eli5 why is the sky blue
```

Left to its own devices it sometimes generates fewer diagrams than you'd like. If you want it to lean harder into visuals, adding an explicit condition like "include at least 3 SVG diagrams" makes the output more consistent.

We asked ELI5 to explain RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) to see what the output actually looks like.

**Prompt used:**

```
/eli5 Explain how RAG works in a simple way. Don't just use text —
include at least 3 SVG diagrams. Show the flow of gather documents →
split them → search → generate an answer as a flowchart with arrows.
```

The recreated output boiled the process down to four steps: gather documents, chop them into small pieces, find similar chunks, read and answer. It used emoji and short phrases to fit everything on one screen:

**Bottom line**: question → find documents → read and answer. That's it.

This is meant as an entry point for grasping *what the mechanism even is*, not a technically precise spec.

ELI5 is designed to optimize for "gets the idea across" over "is precisely correct." Keep these three things in mind when using it for actual work.

Because it optimizes for ease of understanding, it's not a good fit for:

For that kind of work, use ELI5 to get the big picture first, then switch to normal Claude Code instructions or official documentation to nail down the details.

Start with something simple like `/eli5 why is the sky blue`

and see how different the output feels from a normal chat response.

It's also a quick way to turn trending technical terms into a shareable visual explainer. Worth keeping in your toolkit.

*This article was edited with AI assistance.
*Originally published in Japanese on EdgeHUB.*