A field guide
/
AI ENGINEERING 01 / 2026

A presentation for humans who ship

AI for
dummies.

You do not need an army of models. You need a system: one mind to frame the work, several hands to execute it, and a clean boundary between every task.

01strong model
for ambiguity
03bounded workers
in parallel
iterations
with evidence

Read this as a route map, not a prompt recipe.

RULE ZEROStrong model for ambiguity.
Light model for bounded work.
ORCHESTRATOR

Decides what
needs to happen.

Opus / reasoning

The orchestrator preserves intent, writes small contracts, and gathers results that can be verified. It does not need to type every line.

01Context soup

Every worker reads everything. Nobody knows which facts are load-bearing.

02Branch collision

Two agents touch the same checkout. The fastest path becomes conflict resolution.

03Confident drift

The diff is polished, but no one checks whether it solved the original problem.

The subagent loop

Click a phase.
See the handoff.

Delegation means moving one bounded task into a smaller context—not giving away responsibility.

PackageContainsWhy it matters
Briefgoal, files, boundariesstops the worker inventing the problem
Worktreebranch and isolated checkoutparallel edits do not collide
Checkstests, build, criteriaturns “looks good” into evidence
Diffsmall, reviewable changeintegration and discard stay cheap

Git worktrees

One branch
per hand.

A worktree is another directory linked to the same repository. Each agent gets its own checkout and index; history remains shared.

Select a node to inspect its checkout, owner, and next action.

repository topology 4 checkouts

Model routing

Do not pay for
reasoning where
you need rhythm.

Choose a job to see why the model profile changes.

WorkProfilePrompt shape

Skills

Write the right way
once.

A skill is a reusable procedure. It can carry instructions, references, scripts, and assets. It is not magical memory, and it does not replace acceptance criteria.

01 / trigger clearly02 / load detail on demand03 / return evidence
SKILL PACKAGE
name: review-ui · check focus, mobile, reduced motion · run verification · return evidence

The field kit

Different jobs.
Different instincts.

A skill changes how an agent approaches work. Some shape communication. Others enforce research, debugging, review, or completion discipline. Select one to inspect its operating rule.

ONE PRACTICAL LOADOUT
PLAN unlazy BUILD ponytail-lite DEBUG diagnosing-bugs REPORT caveman

Go deeper with official documentation, production case studies, Medium, and practitioner workflows. Primary references → 12-part reading path →