Goal
- Your first goal is to make the agent feel simple, local, and readable instead of magical and overwhelming.
Day 1 Of 5
Set up one safe folder and have your first session
Your first goal is to make the agent feel simple, local, and readable instead of magical and overwhelming.
Today's Win
What success looks like today.
Keep the scope small enough that you can finish and feel the win.
You will leave with
- One sandbox folder, one journal, one tiny output
If you work in sales
- If you work in sales, tell the agent that explicitly. Ask it to keep outputs short, practical, and tied to LinkedIn, outreach, account prep, or follow-up.
Steps
Do these in order.
Keep the scope small enough that you can actually finish.
1
Create a new folder on your desktop. Name it something like `ai-sandbox-v1`.
2
Open that folder in your editor and start your coding agent inside it.
3
Paste the beginner prompt and make the agent explain its plan before it writes anything.
4
Read what it creates. If it makes too much, use the “do less” prompt immediately.
5
End by asking it to write a short journal entry so tomorrow-you can restart calmly.
Need A Prompt?
Open today's prompt only when you are ready to actually run the session.
You can edit the bracketed parts, but keep the overall structure. The structure is part of the beginner safety rail.
Open the prompt for day 1 Use this when you want the page to turn into a real working session.
Pasteable Prompt
Set up one safe folder and have your first session prompt
You are helping a complete beginner learn coding agents.
Rules for this folder:
- Stay inside this folder.
- Ask before creating more than one new file.
- Keep everything readable and plain English.
- Put today's running notes in journal.md.
- If you want to make a plan, make it short.
About me:
- I work in sales and browse LinkedIn a lot.
- I have never coded before.
- I want to learn by building tiny real things.
Start by explaining what this folder should contain today, then help me make one tiny project.If the output becomes too sprawling, go back to the do-less prompt from Start Here.
Common Mistakes
Open these if today starts feeling heavier than it should.
Beginners usually suffer from over-scope, not under-ambition.
See today's watchouts These are the usual ways to accidentally make the day harder.
Watchout
Do not ask the agent to restructure your whole computer.
Watchout
Do not let it create a giant folder tree on the first move.
Watchout
If you feel confused, that means you should shrink the scope, not quit.
See the deeper guide note under today Open this only if you want the extra layer behind today's exercise.
Guide Note 1
Your Personal Rules For The Agent
This is a short written list of how you want the agent to behave with you: how much detail you want, how you like options shown, and what it should stop doing.
Open the guide noteGuide Note 2
Save Your Progress At The End
Session close is the habit of ending with a short, readable handoff note so the next session can restart without guesswork.
Open the guide notePreviousStart HereOpen the setup guide
NextDay 2: Publish a tiny first website