This is a non-paid open-enrollment community-based qualitative project to gather feedback for Cat's open developer science. Neither Cat nor the developers interviewed receive compensation for these interviews. If you've been using the Learning-Opportunities Claude Code skill — or you're curious about designing for better metacognition and learning cycles in agentic coding — you may be interested in this project.
The Learning-Opportunities Skill is a free Claude Code skill and a speculative design exercise: what happens when learning science is baked directly into the agentic workflow, rather than bolted on as an afterthought? The skill offers optional reflection exercises based in validated learning science — for instance, prediction, retrieval practice, and spaced repetition. It helps you apply these approaches to learning with content drawn from your own project, using a "dynamic textbook" approach.
The research question underneath all of this is bigger than the skill itself. As agentic AI reshapes how developers work, what happens to the actual humans in the loop? Are they building expertise, or quietly eroding it? Are they finding new ways to collaborate and learn from each other, or pulling further into isolated, tool-mediated workflows? I'm interviewing developers to shine a light on the clever, human strategies we're coming up with in this era.
You do need to have used the skill to participate. However, if you're actively navigating agentic coding workflows and developer learning and have observations, friction, interesting use cases about what's happening that you'd like to share, feel free to reach out. I cannot promise a quick response (as a solo researcher on this project right now, we're moving at human speed!), but I read every email carefully and deeply appreciate your thoughts and feedback.
Interviews are conversational, about 30 minutes, and completely confidential. Findings will be written up as open science — anonymized and shared back with the community that contributed to them. No vendors, no sales outreach, no commercial interests please.
Reach out directly at dr.cat.hicks@gmail.com with "Open Research Call" in the subject line.