cancer .coach

Practical support for patients and caregivers

AI Skills for Cancer Care Preparation

Prepare for the next conversation.

Prepare questions. Keep records organized. Follow through on care tasks. Five skills help your AI assistant support conversations with your cancer care team, at your pace.

Educational and organizational support. AI can make mistakes; it cannot diagnose cancer, choose treatment, or provide emergency care.

Get Started Explore the Skills
For compatible skills hosts
  • Claude
  • Codex
  • Cursor
  • Gemini CLI
  • GitHub Copilot
  • OpenClaw
01

Everyday care tasks

A little more clarity, one task at a time.

Before the appointment

  • Choose the three questions that matter most to you.
  • Prepare a second-opinion packet and ask what timing is safe.
  • Ask what a test could change, who orders it, and when to expect results.
  • Plan questions about recovery, daily function, costs, and support.

After the appointment

  • Draft a visit summary, then verify it against the team's instructions.
  • Track referrals and results with a named owner and agreed date.
  • Bring medication discrepancies to the team or pharmacist.
  • Keep the team's 24-hour number and urgent action plan close by.
02

The framework

Five skills, guided by what you need today.

Start with your goal

cc-strategist

Start with a question or a practical task. The strategist helps you choose a useful next step and the relevant skill. There is no mandatory sequence or long intake interview.

Assess

Questions about reports, staging, tumor biomarkers, and inherited-risk testing.

Treat

Goals, evidence, benefits, harms, and questions about the options your team offers.

Navigate

Second opinions, referrals, trial questions, costs, and care coordination.

Monitor

The team’s follow-up plan, symptom notes, verified summaries, and task tracking.

03

The skill set

Choose the support that helps right now.

Start here

cc-strategist

Appointment preparation, optional context capture, practical care agendas, and routing among the skills.

Start small. Prepare a question list, identify practical barriers, and make space for your priorities and chosen supporters. Medical concerns go to your care team.

Example prompt

Use cc-strategist. Help me prepare three questions for
my next appointment. I want to discuss recovery and
what the next steps will mean for daily life.

Phase 1

cc-assess

Plain-language diagnostic terms and questions about whether a test could inform your care.

  • Separates diagnosis, screening, tumor profiling, and monitoring
  • Distinguishes tumor testing from inherited-risk testing
  • Prepares questions and tracks when results will be explained

Example prompt

Use cc-assess. Help me understand the terms in this
redacted report and prepare questions about whether
further testing would change the team’s plan.

Phase 2

cc-treat

Shared decision preparation about the treatment options your oncology team has offered.

  • Helps ask about goals, alternatives, benefits, and harms
  • Includes daily function, supportive care, recovery, and costs
  • Separates established evidence from research and anecdotes

Example prompt

Use cc-treat. Help me compare the questions I should ask
about the two options my oncologist described, including
benefits, harms, uncertainty, and time at home.

Phase 3

cc-navigate

Second-opinion preparation, trial questions, referrals, cost questions, and records requests.

  • Prepares a second-opinion packet without unsafe treatment delays
  • Finds potential trial leads for confirmation by the study team
  • Helps ask for a navigator, interpreter, or financial counselor

Example prompt

Use cc-navigate. Help me prepare for a second opinion:
which records should I request, what might it cost, and
what timing should I confirm with my current team?

Phase 4

cc-monitor

Follow-through on the team’s plan, symptom records, result tracking, and verified visit summaries.

  • Records the schedule and action plan supplied by your team
  • Tracks missing results and questions without diagnosing changes
  • Offers concise, privacy-conscious record templates

Example prompt

Use cc-monitor. Turn my team’s follow-up instructions
into a simple task list with owners, agreed dates,
and a place to note questions or missing results.
04

The principles

Care at your pace, grounded in evidence.

Your priorities matter

You choose how much detail and help you want. Rest, comfort, daily function, and support belong in the conversation. Outcomes are never a measure of how hard someone tried.

Evidence before claims

Use current, relevant medical sources. Distinguish established care, research, and personal stories. More testing or treatment is not automatically better.

Decide with your team

AI can explain terms and draft questions. Diagnosis, treatment choices, medicine changes, and monitoring plans need qualified professionals who know the case.

Share less, deliberately

General guidance needs no upload. If you share an excerpt, remove identifying details and check your AI provider's privacy and retention settings. Genomic data can identify people and affect relatives.

05

Get started

Install the skills. Start with one question.

Install into a compatible AI host, then ask for cc-strategist. An optional /cc-teach conversation can gather only the context needed today; you can skip any question.

  • Requires a compatible host; setup and command support vary
  • No medical record upload is required for general guidance
  • Review any draft against the team’s original instructions
  • Skills are instructions for your AI host, not a care or emergency service

Install

npx skills add cancer-coach/skills

Manual installation is also available if you prefer to extract the skill folders directly into your project. Review the host’s settings before entering health information; this page has no health-record upload or chat form.

06

Frequently asked

For patients moving from diagnosis to action.

Who is this for?

People affected by cancer, caregivers with permission, and those seeking general information. You do not need a technical background or a complete medical history to ask for help.

Can it choose treatment or rule out cancer?

No. AI may sound confident and still be wrong. It cannot diagnose, interpret scans independently, choose regimens, certify drug combinations as safe, or predict an individual's survival. Use it for preparation and verify important details with your care team.

What if I have urgent symptoms?

Contact your care team or local emergency service now for urgent concerns. During chemotherapy, a temperature of 38°C / 100.4°F or higher needs immediate oncology contact and urgent assessment; do not wait for it to persist. If the team cannot be reached promptly, seek emergency care and explain the chemotherapy and fever. Follow any stricter team instructions. These skills do not monitor you or respond to emergencies. CDC fever guidance.

What happens to information I enter?

This landing page has no health-record upload or chat form. If you use the skills in an AI host, that provider's privacy, retention, training, memory, and tool settings apply. Do not assume medical confidentiality. Share only what is needed, use redacted excerpts, and review where records would go before authorizing storage or transmission.

Are more tests or experimental treatments always better?

No. Ask what a test could change and what evidence applies to the specific situation. Trials may be available at any stage, but eligibility and benefit are uncertain. Do not delay or skip indicated care for optional testing, a second opinion, or a hypothetical trial. Ask your team what timing is safe.

Does patient advocacy mean doing everything myself?

No. Ask for a navigator, social worker, interpreter, chosen supporter, or help with costs and recovery. Palliative care can accompany treatment at any stage. Choosing comfort and fewer burdens is a valid topic for shared decisions.

07

Sources and limits

Practical experience, checked against medical guidance.

Updated October 15, 2026. Source links were checked on that date; this is a content review, not clinical validation or clinician review of the skills. Guidance, approvals, and trial availability change.

JJ Maxwell’s personal account (October 14, 2026) and the Hacker News discussion inspired scheduling follow-through, second-opinion preparation, recovery questions, and verified visit summaries. They are anecdotes, not evidence that a treatment or testing strategy improves outcomes.