CSC-121 PathMX Starter

This is a small, adaptable starting point for a CSC-121 course website. It is not a finished semester and it does not prescribe one teaching style.

The Starter gives an instructor:

• one working PathMX course home;
• one complete example week with a lesson, lab, assignment, and self-check;
• an agent-guided introduction to curriculum as code;
• reusable workflows for prototyping new teaching material; and
• a simple local preview and static publishing path, with optional review links.

Replace, rearrange, or remove the example content as your own course takes shape.

Start with the agent-guided lab

Open a terminal in this repository and run either:

codex "Onboard me and lead the short PathMX authoring lab."
claude "Onboard me and lead the short PathMX authoring lab."

The repository agent will check the workspace, start the PathMX Player, explain the core ideas, show how one Markdown Source becomes part of the course site, and offer one small edit or prototype. It will not publish or restructure the course without asking.

See Start here, instructor for the manual fallback.

What PathMX contributes

PathMX treats curriculum as a collection of ordinary Markdown files:

• the files stay readable and portable outside PathMX;
• links between files create a navigable course graph;
• filename hints distinguish paths, lessons, labs, projects, and guides;
• the Player supports both free reading and a guided step-by-step Play mode;
• Git can record why curriculum changed; and
• repository-aware agents can inspect the same curriculum, prototype material, check alignment, and prepare a reviewable preview.

PathMX is still a work in progress. This Starter keeps the LMS as the authority for official records and avoids making experimental features necessary for the course to function.

A note about Bun

Bun is the small command-line runtime used by the current PathMX CLI distribution. Install Bun once, then install PathMX:

bun add --global @fellowhumans/pathmx@latest
pathmx --version

After that, the normal course commands are simply pathmx init, pathmx play --open, pathmx build, and pathmx publish. You do not need to manage a Bun project or learn package scripts. pathmx share is available when you want a temporary hosted review link, but it is not required to run or publish the course. A future PathMX release may ship as a standalone executable and remove the Bun prerequisite.

Students do not need Bun to visit a published course site.

Choose any Markdown editor

PathMX Sources are plain .md files. Use a code editor, an ordinary text editor, or a Markdown-focused tool. Obsidian is a good option for instructors who prefer a more visual writing experience: open this repository as a vault and use Live Preview to see formatted text while editing. The local .obsidian/ settings folder is ignored by Git.

Use PathMX Player for the final learner-facing preview because it shows the actual navigation and Play experience that students receive.

Prototype teaching material

The repository-owned prototype-course-material skill supports requests such as:

Prototype a 45-minute lesson that introduces while loops to students who already understand conditionals. Keep it in drafts and show me the Player route.

Turn that lesson into a supported lab and an independent assignment. Show how each activity prepares students for the next one.

Review this draft week for learning alignment, learner friction, and PathMX behavior. Do not publish it yet.

The agent drafts new material under paths/drafts/ by default, outside the published learner graph. The instructor reviews it before linking or publishing it.

Public template, private working course

The canonical Starter remains public because the current PathMX template command initializes public GitHub Template repositories in the pathmx organization. It does not use local Git credentials to read a private template:

pathmx init my-csc-121 --template csc-121-starter

After initialization, the instructor can put my-csc-121 in a new private GitHub repository. The public Starter contains no student records, credentials, private course links, or term-specific data.

GitHub's own Use this template flow can use a private template when the instructor has read access, but that is separate from the current PathMX template flag. Keeping the reusable Starter public and the working course private gives the simplest PathMX onboarding path.

Repository map

• paths/index.path.md — the intentionally small learner course home.
• paths/example-week/ — one complete example to adapt or replace.
• paths/author/ — the PathMX overview, authoring lab, and instructor notes.
• paths/templates/week/ — lightweight patterns used by the authoring agent.
• starter-files/example-week/ — two runnable Python starter files.
• .agents/skills/ — official PathMX skills plus repository-owned onboarding and material-prototyping workflows.
• operations/ — agent use, later project tools, publishing, and optional sharing.

Support and privacy

During the lab period, Haorui can contact Mark whenever setup, authoring, or publishing feels unclear. PathMX is evolving, and questions or rough edges are useful feedback rather than something the instructor needs to solve alone.

Never commit real rosters, learner profiles, submissions, grades, email addresses, credentials, or private feedback to this public Starter. Put those records only in institution-approved systems or a protected term workspace.

License

The curriculum Sources, templates, documentation, and supporting code are available under the MIT License.