Intro

Maybe you’ve heard a lot of gobbledygook about agents. There are endless strange practices with stranger names. There are endless tools to plug in. There are processes and practices born and discarded every week, it seems, as we all try to get our arms around this change in computing.

Or maybe you’ve been spared all of this. And you just want to know what the fuss is about.

We’re going to get into loads of detail.

But first, let’s just use an agent to accomplish a task.

To do this, you’ll need a working agent. Claude Desktop (in Code mode, just select the tab marked “Code” or </>), the Claude Code CLI, or Codex are good places to start. But if you have a strange or obscure agent you prefer, that’s fine too.

Sign up, if needed, do your installation, get your agent ready to roll.

Why is a coding agent different from web ‘chat’?

When you visit a site like ChatGPT.com, you’re interacting with a large language model, and a pretty simple agent.

But it’s stuck in your web browser. When you run a coding agent on your computer, it has additional powers. It can edit files, it can read files, and it can run tools and utilities that bring code to life. That’s what we need for the next activity: the agent needs the power to create all the files that make a website on your behalf.

Because the files will start their lives locally on your machine, you’ll be able to inspect and edit them too. Don’t worry: agent code restricts all of these file activities to just the folder you specify.

Low tech advice

Bring a notebook. Write things down.

Record what surprises you. Record what’s interesting. When you start to have new ideas, write those down too.

What if you get stuck?

Ask your AI product for help. Just give it the URL of the page you’re looking it. It’ll read through it and help you with any questions.