@Rick McCulloch Great instinct — a diagnostic quiz up front is exactly how most high-performing adaptive courses work. You're thinking about it correctly. Here's the architecture I'd suggest, and then how to layer email on top. 1. The diagnostic quiz (the "placement test") Keep it short — 5 to 10 questions is the sweet spot. Mix two types: - Self-assessment ("On a scale of 1–5, how confident are you with X?") - Knowledge checks (actual questions where a right/wrong answer reveals their real level, not just their perceived level) The self-assessment tells you what they think they know; the knowledge check tells you what they actually know. The gap between the two is often where the real coaching opportunity lives. 2. Tag, don't score Instead of one overall "skill score," tag the student by topic area. Someone might be advanced on Module 1 content but a beginner on Module 3. If you tag per topic, you can unlock, skip, or reorder modules surgically instead of lumping them into one tier. Minimum viable version: three tiers (Foundations / Applied / Advanced) per topic. You can get fancier later. 3. Route the course agenda Based on the tags, Buildy should serve one of three paths for each module: - Skip — they've demonstrated mastery, show them a 1-page summary and a "test out" option - Standard — full module - Reinforced — full module plus a prerequisite primer before it This is where Buildy earns its keep: the same course content, reordered and filtered by the quiz results, feels like three different courses. 4. Email customization (yes, and go further) The tag should drive not just content but cadence and tone: - Beginners → more frequent emails, encouragement-heavy, smaller wins highlighted, "you're doing great" check-ins - Intermediate → standard cadence, tactical tips, "here's the nuance most people miss" - Advanced → lower cadence, peer-level tone, case studies and edge cases, early access to harder material Also build in behavioral triggers on top of the skill tag: if someone hasn't logged in for 5 days, the email they get should be different from the one a daily-active student gets — regardless of their skill level.