[curriculum-eval] 04-github-actions-intro.md: cognitive_load — 28 new concepts in a "5 minutes" page

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
77/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
github-actions, javascript, markdown
Domain
content, documentation

Research direction

Start with workshop/04-github-actions-intro.md and compare its Quick Refresher, labeling exercise, and workflow exploration against the issue’s five key terms. Simplify the vocabulary and add a hands-on item while retaining the named checkpoint and Before You Start sections. Done when the page reduces concepts and increases activity as described; run npx --yes markdownlint-cli2 "**/*.md".

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

curriculum documentation quality

File: workshop/04-github-actions-intro.md
Overall Score: 5.39 / 10.0 (corpus mean: 6.06)

Flagged Dimensions:

Dimension Score Benchmark Delta
cognitive_load 6.8 (756 words, 28 concepts) ≤ 15 concepts → 10 −3.2
active_learning 3.9 (density 1.19) density ≥ 3 −6.1

(checkpoint_quality 0.0 / scaffolding 5.0 are rubric false negatives — the page has ## :white_check_mark: Checkpoint with 5 items and ## :clipboard: Before You Start.)

Root Cause (≤ 2 sentences):
The page is titled "GitHub Actions in 5 Minutes" but introduces 28 distinct terms (trigger, job, runner, action, step, on, jobs, steps, etc.) across 7 sections. Confirmed: the Quick Refresher plus labeling exercise plus a real-workflow exploration is more than five minutes of new vocabulary.

Evidence (quoted from the file):

Already know GitHub Actions? Confirm these three statements and skip ahead: You know workflows live in .github/workflows/ as YAML files / You can read on, jobs, and steps keys in a workflow file

Learning Science Rationale:
Miller/Cowan working-memory limits and Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory predict that more than ~4–7 novel elements at once overwhelms novices. Pre-training (Mayer) — introducing the five key terms first, then examples — reduces intrinsic load, and worked examples with faded guidance help novices connect the terms.

Improvement Prompt (for an agent):

Edit workshop/04-github-actions-intro.md. Reduce new concepts to ≤ 15 by limiting the Quick Refresher to the five parts used in the labeling exercise (trigger, job, runner, action, step), moving optional terms (e.g. `on`/`jobs`/`steps` syntax detail, extra definitions) to a <details> block or an existing side-quest, and replacing long prose with a one-line definition table. Add one more hands-on item (e.g. a code block the learner edits) so activity density rises toward 3. Keep the `:white_check_mark: Checkpoint` (≥ 4 specific items) and `:clipboard: Before You Start`. Run `npx --yes markdownlint-cli2 "**/*.md"`.

Expected Score After Fix: 6.2 / 10.0 (≈ 8.3 once the rubric regex is fixed)

Generated by 🔬 Curriculum Quality Evaluator · copilot · auto · ~47 AIC · ⌖ ~1 AIC · ⊞ 5K · ◷

  • expires on Nov 5, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
58
Forks
40
Avg merge
4d 4h
Merged PRs (30d)
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