HAX UbD Unit Audit (Read-Only Diagnostic)

Review an existing HAX site/unit against the UbD design standards and emit a diagnostic + remediation report. This skill diagnoses and recommends only — it does not edit pages, mutate site.json, or insert components. It mirrors the hax-content-chunking-audit pattern (page-scope load) but operates at unit scope for backward-design alignment.

When to Use

Trigger conditions:

• "Review this unit for understanding" / "is my course backward-designed"
• "Audit my HAX site against UbD" / "are my assessments aligned"
• "Does this unit have big ideas" / "why does this unit feel like coverage"
• even when the user does not say "UbD" — if they question a unit's intellectual coherence or assessment alignment, this is the skill

When NOT to use (with redirect):

• Page readability / "wall of text" / chunking → hax-content-chunking-audit (page scope)
• DDD/CSS compliance → hax-design-system
• Component accessibility audit → hax-webcomponent-dev
• Designing/redesigning a unit (not just auditing) → hax-ubd-backward-design

Scope: this skill is READ-ONLY

This skill diagnoses and recommends only. It produces a report. To actually apply remediation, hand off to the UbD stage skills and the hax CLI / hax-claudehax (see "Implementing the Recommendations" below). Never edit pages/*.html or site.json from within this skill.

Inputs

• a HAX site path: site.json (JOS tree) + pages/*.html + optional files/ubd/*.manifest.json
• optional unitSlug to scope the audit to one unit node (else audit the top-level course structure)

Methodology

1. Ingest structure. Locate the unit in the HAX project:
   • site.json (JSON Outline Schema) for the node tree + metadata
   • pages/<slug>.html for rendered page content (the canonical content source)
   • files/ubd/<unit-slug>.manifest.json if the unit was designed with the UbD skills (else reconstruct a partial manifest from the live site for alignment checking)
2. Run the 12 UbD design-standards checks (../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/design-standards.md) across the unit:
   • Big-idea focus present, visible, transferable?
   • Enduring understandings proposition-shaped (not topics/facts)?
   • Overarching + topical essential questions present and genuinely open?
   • Predictable misunderstandings anticipated AND addressed (pre-assess + confront)?
   • Assessment aligned to goals (Stage 1 ↔ Stage 2)?
   • ≥1 GRASPS performance task? Problem-not-exercise?
   • Six-facet evidence breadth? Rubric criteria facet-mapped?
   • Validity self-test pass (run it on each assessment — ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/validity-self-test.md)?
   • Reliability: multiple measures over time?
   • WHERETO sequence present? Exhibit references a real Stage 2 task?
   • Uncoverage vs coverage?
   • Cross-stage triangulation (Stage 1 ↔ 2 ↔ 3 coherent)?
3. Map each finding to a real HAX remediation component. Use the consolidated map (../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/ubd-element-map.md). Never invent tag names.
4. Determine the overall rating: Aligned | Partial | Activity-oriented | Coverage-bound (the twin sins are named diagnoses, not vague grades).
5. Emit the report (format below), then an "Implementation handoff" block pointing at the skill/CLI that applies each fix.

Expected Output Format

Format findings exactly like this structure (mirrors hax-content-chunking-audit):

### 📊 UbD Design Diagnostics
* **Backward-Design Rating:** [Aligned / Partial / Activity-oriented / Coverage-bound]
* **Primary Defect:** [the worst offender — one sentence]

### 🔍 Findings & HAX Remediation

* **{node / page / unit-level}**
  * **UbD Standard Violated:** [standard # + name]
  * **Issue:** [e.g., Goals present but no enduring understandings — only topic nouns]
  * **UbD Rationale:** [why this defeats understanding — cite the twin sin or alignment failure]
  * **HAX Remediation:** [real component + concrete placement, e.g. "Add a `stop-note` at the top of pages/<slug>.html carrying the essential question; add `oer-schema` learningOutcome propositions."]

* **{node / page / unit-level}**
  * ...

### 🛠 Implementation handoff
* [one-line action per fix → skill/CLI, e.g. "Rebuild Stage 2 from Stage 1 via `hax-ubd-stage2`."]

Worked example

Input — a HAX unit node "Westward Expansion" with three child pages: a long text page, a vocabulary word-search page, and a 10-item multiple-choice quiz. No manifest present.

Output:

### 📊 UbD Design Diagnostics
* **Backward-Design Rating:** Activity-oriented
* **Primary Defect:** No enduring understandings or essential questions; the only
  evidence is a selected-response quiz that cannot reveal understanding.

### 🔍 Findings & HAX Remediation

* **Unit-level (site.json node "westward-expansion")**
  * **UbD Standard Violated:** #1 Big-idea focus; #2 Enduring understandings; #3 Essential questions
  * **Issue:** No big ideas, understandings, or EQs anywhere in the unit. Pages are
    activity + content only.
  * **UbD Rationale:** Activity-oriented design (twin sin #1) — "hands-on without
    being minds-on." Without explicit priorities, students cannot answer "what's
    the point?" and learning is by osmosis.
  * **HAX Remediation:** Run `hax-ubd-stage1` to derive big ideas + understandings
    + EQs from the topic. Then add a `stop-note` carrying the topical EQ to the top
    of each child page, and `oer-schema` `learningOutcome` propositions to page
    metadata.

* **Page "westward-quiz" (multiple-choice only)**
  * **UbD Standard Violated:** #6 GRASPS task; #7 facet breadth; #8 validity
  * **Issue:** The only evidence is a `multiple-choice` quiz. No performance task.
  * **UbD Rationale:** Selected response is "insufficient and sometimes misleading"
    for understanding. It can show recall, not transfer. Fails validity self-test
    Q2 (parroting) and Q1 (guessing).
  * **HAX Remediation:** Add ≥1 GRASPS performance task page via `hax-ubd-stage2`
    (authentic context via `video-player`/`image-compare-slider`; product via
    `simple-fields`; rubric via `editable-table`). Keep the quiz as OE for K/S only.

* **Page "westward-vocab" (word search)**
  * **UbD Standard Violated:** #12 triangulation
  * **Issue:** Word search is an orphan activity — equips for no Stage 2 performance.
  * **UbD Rationale:** Activity not derived from goals/evidence — the activity-oriented sin.
  * **HAX Remediation:** Drop or repurpose as an Explore/Equip (`flash-card` for
    vocab retrieval) that explicitly equips for the GRASPS task.

### 🛠 Implementation handoff
* Unit-level: run `hax-ubd-stage1` then `hax-ubd-stage2` to rebuild goals + evidence.
* Quiz page: add a GRASPS task page via `hax-ubd-stage2`; keep quiz as OE only.
* Vocab page: replace with `flash-card` Explore/Equip, or drop.
* Apply DDD tokens via `hax-design-system`; insert via `hax-claudehax` / `hax-site-building`.

Implementing the Recommendations

This audit is the diagnosis step. Apply fixes with the related skills and the hax CLI:

• hax-ubd-backward-design — full redesign when the rating is Activity-oriented or Coverage-bound.
• hax-ubd-stage1 / hax-ubd-stage2 / hax-ubd-stage3 — targeted rebuild of the failing stage(s) when the rating is Partial.
• hax-claudehax — insert components/sections into existing pages (e.g. /hax add a stop-note carrying the essential question to <page>).
• hax-site-building — owns page structure; edit page content at pages/<slug>.html; add pages via hax site node:add / site:items-import (never hand-edit site.json).
• hax-design-system — DDD tokens for spacing, color, icon sizing on any inserted component.
• grad-blooms — when a check-in/quiz is retained, confirm its cognitive level matches the learning objective.

CLI rules (from PRAW RULES.md):

• Use the local/global hax command — not npx hax.
• When scripting, pass automation flags: --y --no-i --auto (add --quiet / --skip as needed).
• Never hand-edit site.json for structure — use the CLI.
• a11y-collapse MUST set heading-button.
• Audio via media-playlist + audio-player; inputs via simple-fields; tables via editable-table; educational elements get oer-schema metadata.

Acceptance criteria (for the audit report itself)

• Every finding cites the UbD standard # it violates and a real HAX component that fixes it.
• The rating is one of: Aligned / Partial / Activity-oriented / Coverage-bound.
• If a manifest is present, validation.* fields are updated from this audit run.
• No recommended component is outside the verified registry.

Gotchas

• A site can have many multiple-choice and still be 0% evidence of understanding. Selected response alone is insufficient — do not rate a quiz-heavy unit as Aligned.
• Alignment is the failure mode. A fun, rich, well-chunked unit can still be Activity-oriented if Stage 2 doesn't align to Stage 1. Don't be fooled by production quality.
• "Coverage" is negative; "survey"/"overview" is legitimate. Do not flag a purposeful, transparent overview as coverage-bound. Coverage is content march with no overarching intellectual purpose.
• Don't edit here. This skill emits a report. Structural edits belong to the hax CLI via hax-site-building; content edits belong in pages/<slug>.html or via hax-claudehax; redesign belongs to the UbD stage skills.
• A missing manifest is a finding, not a blocker. Reconstruct a partial manifest from the live site to check alignment, and note "no manifest — designed without UbD skills" as context.

Dependencies

• Reads: site.json / pages/*.html / files/ubd/*.manifest.json
• Hands off to: hax-ubd-backward-design (redesign) or hax-ubd-stage1/2/3 (targeted fixes) + hax-claudehax / hax-site-building (insertion)
• Consults: grad-blooms, hax-content-chunking-audit (page scope), hax-design-system

References

• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/design-standards.md — the 12 standards + rating → diagnosis mapping (the core checklist)
• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/ubd-element-map.md — remediation component map (real tags only)
• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/validity-self-test.md — run on each assessment
• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/manifest-schema.md — for reconstructing/validating a partial manifest
• PRAW RULES.md: ~/Documents/git/haxtheweb/praw/RULES.md
• Source: Wiggins & McTighe (2005), UbD — design standards (Appendix) + Fig 8.5.