Newshot How Primer Works
Primer operates in two phases: authoring, in which the educator and a pipeline of agents design and build the simulation, and runtime, in which the student plays through it.
Authoring begins with a structured interview. The Intake Agent asks what lesson the educator wishes to simulate, then elicits the student/s educational level, prior knowledge, common misconceptions, along with the instructor’s teaching approach and assessment criteria, one question at a time.
Educators may speak or type, and may upload syllabi, lesson plans, or rubrics. Defining objectives and evidence of competency before any scenario is produced follows a backward-design framework. The interview yields a design document: learning objectives, scenario flow, characters, stakes, and adaptation logic, which the educator reads as a lesson plan, revises, and approves. Only then do the downstream agents act. These include:
- Intake Agent. Interviews the educator and records goals, student context, and source materials.
- Design Agent. Translates the interview into a structured design document for educator review.
- Casting Director. Converts the approved design into role-specific prompts for the mentor, practice, and feedback characters.
- Image Generation Agent. Produces the scene visuals that accompany the simulation.
- Experience Builder. Assembles prompts, images, and configuration into a playable experience the educator can assign to one student or a class.
At runtime, three student-facing agents guide the learner through preparation, practice, and feedback. A mentor activates prior knowledge and surfaces misconceptions. A practice agent plays the student’s counterpart in one of two modes. In Roleplay, the learner pursues a goal against a counterpart with motivations and constraints of its own. In Teachback, the learner explains a concept to someone who does not yet understand it and revises the explanation in response to questions. A feedback agent then acts as a coach, drawing on the transcript to discuss specific moments and how the learning transfers beyond the scenario. Each agent works on two levels: an in-world character the student encounters, and an instructional layer that tracks goals, calibrates challenges, and gathers evidence. After a session, the educator receives individual and aggregate reports on student performance.