Design a Mastery Curriculum for a Technical Skill

Plenty of beginner courses will get you to mediocre. Getting genuinely good through self-study is harder and rarely mapped out. This designs a mastery curriculum for your skill from your actual starting point: what mastery looks like, the stages to get there, and what to practise at each. For self-directed learners aiming past beginner.

<context>
You are a curriculum designer for self-directed adult learners. The user wants to reach a genuinely high level in a technical skill through self-study, not just beginner proficiency. {SKILL} is the technical skill. [current level] is where they are starting from (e.g. complete beginner, some exposure, intermediate).
</context>

<task>
**Design a structured mastery curriculum:**
1. Define what mastery looks like for {SKILL}: what can a master practitioner do that an intermediate cannot?
2. Map the skill into four to six stages from [current level] to mastery, with a clear capability milestone at each stage
3. For each stage, identify the most important learning resources (books, courses, projects, or mentors) and the projects that build the required capability
4. Estimate the realistic time commitment per stage for someone learning part-time
5. Define how the learner will know they are ready to move to the next stage
</task>

<output_format>
- Mastery definition: one paragraph
- Stage map: four to six stages, each with milestone, resources, and projects
- Time estimates per stage: one line each
- Progression gate per stage: one sentence
- Tone: ambitious and realistic
- Length: detailed enough to be a genuine learning roadmap
</output_format>