Claudemy: an open-source alternative to Udemy and Coursera

Claudemy is a free Claude Code skill that turns any topic into a short audio course. You type what you want to learn. Claude researches it on the web, works out what good sources agree on, and builds a set of 2-minute lessons: two voices talking, a one-screen card, and one small thing to try. Every lesson links to the pages it came from.

> teach me negotiation

No catalog, no subscription, no 40-hour video course. Learn exactly the topic you need, at your level, in lessons short enough to finish.

What you get

• About 12 audio lessons, 2 minutes each. Two hosts talking, not a lecture. MP3 files you can play anywhere.
• A card per lesson: the idea in three lines, how many sources agree (and who disagrees), one small practice, and links to go deeper.
• A playbook: one rule per lesson, collected in one file you keep.
• A lesson plan that shows where the experts split, laid out as decisions rather than lessons.
• Real citations. A checker refuses any lesson that cites a page the research didn't actually read.

How it works

1. Maps the topic into sub-topics, from how it's usually taught.
2. Researches the web: 20 to 40 pages from practitioners, official docs, research summaries and a few dissenting views. No more than 3 pages from one site, so no single voice dominates.
3. Reads and compares: reader agents pull cited notes, then one agent merges them into themes with agreement counts.
4. Plans the course in arcs of about 4 lessons, foundations first.
5. Makes one sample lesson and waits for your reaction, then writes and records the rest.

Want a class built from one person's work instead? Say so: teach me negotiation from <name>'s writing. It reads their Substack or blog and builds the class from that.

Install

As a Claude Code plugin:

/plugin marketplace add assafkip/claudemy
/plugin install claudemy@claudemy

Or copy skills/claudemy/ into ~/.claude/skills/, or download dist/claudemy.skill.

Needs

• Claude Code with web search.
• Python 3 with beautifulsoup4 (pip install beautifulsoup4), and ffmpeg.
• Audio: an ElevenLabs API key in ELEVENLABS_API_KEY for natural two-voice lessons. Without one, macOS's built-in voices are used (free, plainer).
• Optional: pandoc for a Word copy of the cards.

Voices can be changed with CLAUDEMY_VOICE_A / CLAUDEMY_VOICE_B (ElevenLabs voice ids) or CLAUDEMY_SAY_A / CLAUDEMY_SAY_B (macOS voices).

FAQ

Is Claudemy free? Yes. The skill is MIT licensed. You pay only for what you already use: your Claude plan, and ElevenLabs credits if you want the premium voices. The macOS voices cost nothing.

How is it different from Udemy or Coursera? Course sites sell a fixed course someone recorded once. Claudemy builds a course on the topic you name, at your level, from current sources, and shows you where those sources disagree. Lessons are 2 minutes and end in one thing to try, so the course is built to be finished.

What topics does it work for? Anything people write about well on the open web: skills (negotiation, public speaking, sourdough), professional topics (pricing, hiring, SQL), and subjects (stoicism, music theory). Health, legal and financial topics get a note where advice depends on your situation.

Does it copy other people's content? No. It reads pages the way a researcher does, writes its own lessons, and links to the sources. Pages it reads are saved only in your local workspace for your own study.

Can I use it without ElevenLabs? Yes. On a Mac it falls back to the built-in voices. The cards and playbook work with no audio at all.

How long does a course take to make? A 12-lesson course is a long-running Claude Code session: research, reading, writing and about 25 minutes of generated audio.

Can I learn from one specific expert? Yes. Name them in the request. Claudemy finds their Substack or blog and builds the course from their writing.

License

MIT. Free to use, change and share.