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[curriculum-eval] side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md: cognitive_load — 1234 words and 23 new concepts in one page

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
Half a day
Newbie friendliness
85/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
markdown, node.js
Domain
content

Research direction

The file to edit is workshop/side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md; read it to locate the long prose and YAML snippets flagged. Follow the prompt to cut to ≤900 words, restructure defences with immediate learner actions, and keep required sections. Done when it passes npx --yes markdownlint-cli2 "workshop/side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md" and retains checkpoint items.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

curriculum documentation quality

File: workshop/side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md
Overall Score: 4.95 / 10.0 (corpus mean: 6.06)

Flagged Dimensions:

Dimension Score Benchmark Delta
cognitive_load 5.8 ≥ 9 (≤ 800 words, ≤ 15 concepts) −3.2
active_learning 2.7 ≥ 10 (density ≥ 3) −7.3

(checkpoint_quality 0.0 / scaffolding 5.0 are rubric artifacts — see the separate rubric-regex issue.)

Root Cause (≤ 2 sentences):
The page packs 1234 words, 23 new concepts and 9 H2 sections (attack explanation, three defences, two exercises, author guidance) into one side quest, giving an activity density of only 0.81. Long explanatory prose and large YAML snippets precede the first exercise at line 125.

Evidence (quoted from the file):

Objectives: "Explain what repository poisoning is...", "Identify dangerous permissions: and toolsets: values...", "Apply the three gh-aw defences: contents: read, safe-outputs: create-pull-request, and network.allowed-domains."

Learning Science Rationale:
Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory predicts that intrinsic load rises with the number of interacting elements; 23 new concepts before the first practice activity exceeds working-memory capacity. Segmenting (Mayer) and interleaving short practice after each defence would move learners from reading to doing earlier.

Improvement Prompt (for an agent):

Edit workshop/side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md. Cut it to ≤ 900 words and ≤ 15 new concepts: tighten "The Attack" and "Why This Matters" to a short paragraph each, and move the long YAML snippets under "How AW Defends Against It" into one compact before/after example. Introduce each of the three defences with a 1-line explanation followed immediately by a one-step learner action (a code block plus checklist item). Keep the Learning Objectives, the ":clipboard: Before You Start" section and the ":white_check_mark: Checkpoint" section (≥ 4 verifiable items). No numbered headings. Run `npx --yes markdownlint-cli2 "workshop/side-quest-17-07-repo-poisoning.md"`.

Expected Score After Fix: 6.5 / 10.0 (≈ 8.0 once the rubric regex fix lands)

Generated by 🔬 Curriculum Quality Evaluator · copilot · auto · ~46 AIC · ⌖ ~1 AIC · ⊞ 5K · ◷

  • expires on Oct 26, 2026, 3:44 AM UTC
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
55
Forks
36
Avg merge
2d 8h
Merged PRs (30d)
17

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