MISSION.md lives at the workspace root. It captures the reason the user is learning this topic. Every teaching decision — what to teach next, which resources to surface, which exercises to design — should trace back to this document.
# Mission: {Topic}
## Why
{1-3 sentences. The concrete real-world goal the user is chasing. What changes in their life or work when they have this skill? Avoid abstract framings like "to understand X" — push for the underlying outcome.}
## Success looks like
- {A specific, observable thing the user will be able to do}
- {Another specific thing}
- {…}
## Constraints
- {Time, budget, prior commitments, learning preferences, anything that bounds the approach}
## Out of scope
- {Adjacent topics the user explicitly does not want to chase right now — protects the zone of proximal development}
MISSION.md runs past a screen, it has stopped being a compass and started being a plan.