---
title: "cognitive-load"
description: "What a reader must keep in mind at the same time to do a task in a code base, a system or a process, sorted into the load the task needs and the load the structure adds, with the change that removes the second. The skill"
canonical: https://agentpluginsdirectory.com/plugins/cognitive-load
last-updated: 2026-09-25
---

# cognitive-load
What a reader must keep in mind at the same time to do a task in a code base, a system or a process, sorted into the load the task needs and the load the structure adds, with the change that removes the second. The skill fixes the reader and the task, collects observations with a practitioner's measure of newcomer confusion, counts the elements a reader must relate at once, sorts each as intrinsic or extraneous, walks the thirteen sections of Zakirullin's catalogue of extraneous load in code, names a published count when one is wanted, recommends the change per element with its cost, and verifies with a newcomer. The references carry cognitive load theory as read, mostly as abstracts, the catalogue in the essay's words, the two measures, the studies of programmers, and the sources. No script, no network, no credentials.
- Slug: cognitive-load
- Publisher: Alexander Kurganov
- Repository: https://github.com/Akurganow/ai-plugins
- Manifest: plugins/cognitive-load/plugin.json
- Version: 0.1.0
- License: MIT
- Category (editorial): other
- Skills: 1 (cognitive-load)
- MCP servers: 0
- Stars: 1
- Repository created: 2026-08-22
- Repository last pushed: 2026-09-25
- Publisher type: User
- Listing: https://agentpluginsdirectory.com/plugins/cognitive-load
- Schema: https://agent-plugins.org/schemas/1.0.0/plugin.schema.json

## What cognitive-load does, in the publisher's words

A diagnosis of what a reader must keep in mind at the same time to do a task in a code base, a system or a process. It is for an engineer whose code base, system or process has become hard to read. One skill that sorts the load into what the task needs and what the structure adds, and names the change that removes the second. Its terms come from cognitive load theory, read mostly as abstracts and applied to code by analogy. The catalogue of extraneous load in code is a practitioner's essay.

Part of the ai-plugins marketplace. Installing: the per-client sections of the root README.

The skill fixes the reader and the task first, because a load exists only against both. Then it works in this order.

From the project README, punctuation lightly normalized. Full text: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Akurganow/ai-plugins/HEAD/plugins/cognitive-load/README.md

## Skills

- cognitive-load: Find what a reader must keep in mind at the same time to do a task in a code base, a system or a process, sort it into the load the task needs and the load the structure adds, and name the change that removes the second. Draws its terms from cognitive load theory, read mostly as abstracts and appli…

Descriptions come from the frontmatter of each SKILL.md, punctuation lightly normalized.