How to use the Zhang Xuefeng Perspective agent skill

What does the zhangxuefeng-perspective skill make the agent do?

Once the skill is active, the agent answers in Zhang Xuefeng's voice: short sentences, a fast pace, direct judgements and a blunt, colloquial tone. The skill's source material includes his books, long interviews, a set of recorded quotes and a timeline of key decisions, and it distills these into five mental models and eight decision heuristics.

Before answering a question about a specific major, university, industry or employment figure, the skill tells the agent to look up current data with a web search tool. It also tells the agent to ask about the family's background first, because the advice it gives depends on that. The skill's own rule is that facts come before opinion: employment rates, median salaries and admission score lines are what it treats as reliable.

• Answers questions about majors, universities, jobs and social mobility
• Uses a persona voice and a decision framework based on median outcomes
• Searches for current employment and admissions data before answering factual questions
• Asks about the family's situation (for example, scores, province and family work) before giving advice

How do you install the zhangxuefeng-perspective skill?

There are two ways to add the skill. Both start from the ZIP file on the page where you found this guide. Download the ZIP and unzip it. The unzipped folder should contain SKILL.md at its top level, along with the references folder and FIDELITY.md.

For a personal install, unzip the skill into your user skills folder. For a single project, unzip it into the project's own skills folder. In Claude apps, you can instead upload the ZIP under Settings, then Capabilities, then Skills.

• Personal install: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
• Project install: unzip into the .claude/skills/ folder inside your project
• Claude apps: go to Settings → Capabilities → Skills and upload the ZIP
• Start a new session after installing so the agent loads the skill

How do you trigger the skill with natural requests?

You don't need a special command. The skill is meant to activate when you ask for a Zhang Xuefeng-style view in ordinary language. The skill's description lists phrases such as 'use Zhang Xuefeng's perspective', 'what would Zhang Xuefeng think', 'Zhang Xuefeng mode' and 'Xuefeng perspective'. It also lists softer wording, such as 'think about this from Zhang Xuefeng's angle' or 'switch to Zhang Xuefeng'.

To leave the persona, say something like 'exit', 'switch back to normal' or 'no need to role-play'. The skill is written to keep the persona for the whole conversation unless you ask it to stop.

• Use the Chinese phrases from the skill description, such as 「用张雪峰的视角」 or 「雪峰视角」, or the equivalent English request
• To leave, say 「退出」「切回正常」or 「不用扮演了」
• The skill is designed to stay in character and not step out to analyse it, unless you explicitly ask it to exit

What do example requests look like?

Good requests name a concrete decision and give the agent something to research. The skill asks for the family's situation first, so answering those questions early produces better advice. The examples below show the kind of question the skill is built for.

In the skill's own worked example, a question about whether a child should study artificial intelligence triggers a search for current employment data and admission details for that major before any opinion is given. Your questions can follow the same pattern.

• Switch to Zhang Xuefeng's angle: my son scored 560 on the gaokao and wants to study journalism. What should I think about?
• Use the Xuefeng perspective on whether a humanities degree is worth it compared with a science degree in a second-tier city.
• What would Zhang Xuefeng say about choosing between a famous university for a general major and a lower-ranked school for a practical one?
• Use Zhang Xuefeng mode to judge whether my graduate-school plan makes sense given my family's budget.

What does the skill need to run?

The skill does not run scripts. It needs a web search tool, because its instructions tell the agent to use WebSearch to get current data on employment, admissions and industry changes. It also uses the network for those searches. If your agent has no web search available, the skill's fallback is to ask you to supply the key figures yourself, which means its answers will rest on your data rather than its own research.

Make sure your agent setup allows web search before you rely on the skill for any factual question.

• Web search tool (required for current data, as the skill instructs WebSearch)
• No scripts are run by this skill
• Network access is used for the web searches

What safety and accuracy limits should you know?

The skill speaks in a deliberately confident, one-sided style. Its instructions tell the agent to avoid hedging words such as 'maybe' or 'it depends'. That makes it a poor fit for factual or medical decisions where a confident tone could mislead you, and it is not a neutral source. Verify important figures, such as admissions scores or job data, against official or primary sources before you act on them.

The persona is inferred from public remarks and writings, not written by the person himself, and the person has died. Do not present the skill's output as his actual views, for example in published content. The skill's own disclaimer, given once when it activates, says the view is inferred from public statements and is not his personal opinion.

Because the skill makes network requests through web search, treat the sources it cites as you would any web content and check them.

• Not for factual or medical decisions where a confident persona could mislead
• Not for anyone wanting a neutral, balanced view: the persona takes extreme positions on purpose
• Do not present output as the real person's views; the persona is inferred from public remarks and the person has died
• The skill includes a disclaimer on first activation only
• Uses network access through web search

What tips help you get better answers?

Give the agent specifics. The skill's method depends on numbers and on the family's circumstances, so a request with a province, a score range, a budget and a target city gives it more to work with. If an answer comes back without data, ask the agent to search again for the employment rate or median salary of the specific major.

The skill's own material also points to the limits of its framework. Median outcomes change over time, and a framework built on past data may miss new fields or technology shifts. Use the answer as a structured way to think, then check the numbers yourself.

• State the major, school or industry by name so the agent can search for it
• Give the family situation up front: scores, province, budget and what the family does
• Ask for the median outcome, not the best-case story, if you want the framework's logic
• Check the data the agent cites before making a decision
• Say 「退出」 when you want a plain answer without the persona