# AI For Dummies — Field Guide
AI For Dummies: a field guide to skills, models, subagents, and worktrees.

A field guide
review submissions ↗
/
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.

FIELD NOTE / 001 Ship the
system.Skills · agents · worktrees · proof
01 strong model
for ambiguity
03 bounded workers
in parallel
∞iterations
with evidence

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

RULE ZERO Strong model for ambiguity.
Light model for bounded work.
THINK MAKE
A small fleetcoordination before parallelism
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.

Why the boundary mattersone vague task / three predictable failures
01 Context soup

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

02 Branch collision

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

03 Confident 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.

What crosses contextsbrief → diff → evidence

Package | Contains | Why it matters
--- | --- | ---
Brief | goal, files, boundaries | stops the worker inventing the problem
Worktree | branch and isolated checkout | parallel edits do not collide
Checks | tests, build, criteria | turns “looks good” into evidence
Diff | small, reviewable change | integration 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
Model gearboxcapability tier × thinking effort

Two separate knobs

## Choose the engine.
Then choose the gear.

A stronger model changes the capability ceiling. Higher reasoning effort gives that model more room to work. Start with the lightest combination that passes your real checks, then move one knob at a time.

REASONING / THINKING
ROUTING RULE Use strong models for ambiguity and judgment. Use lighter models for bounded execution. Raise effort only when evaluation shows a gain.

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

Create a skillrepeatable pain → reusable judgment

The skill forge

## Teach the decision.
Keep the context light.

Do not package everything you know. Capture the non-obvious choices that repeatedly improve an outcome, then prove the skill changes behavior.

OUTPUT / SKILL PACKAGE

    review-ui/
    ├── SKILL.md
    ├── agents/
    │   └── openai.yaml
    ├── references/
    │   └── accessibility.md
    └── scripts/
        └── verify.mjs

VALIDATE `quick_validate.py ./review-ui`
AFTER REAL USE
observe failure→sharpen one rule→retest behavior→keep it narrow
Common skillschoose behavior before model

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 and verified source.

ONE PRACTICAL LOADOUT
PLAN unlazy → BUILD ponytail-lite → DEBUG diagnosing-bugs → REPORT caveman
INSTALL PACK Ask your coding agent to verify, install, and validate the skills.

Hands-on10 minutes / one missing feature

Tiny Tasks lab

## Same task.
Better operating system.

Start with a deliberately incomplete static task board. Run one prompt as written, reset, then run the skill-enabled version. Compare diff size, verification evidence, and unnecessary complexity.

Open the starter → Clone from Gitea →
Open the rules lab → Clone from Gitea →
THE MISSING FEATURE Add All / Open / Done filters that survive reload and browser navigation.
STACK HTML · CSS · JavaScript DEPENDENCIES none FILES 3
RUN A Good prompt

RUN B Good prompt + skills

COMPARE THE RUNS
01 Files changed
02 New dependencies
03 Checks actually run
04 Evidence returned

THE HUMAN JOB The agent may be autonomous in execution. Intent, boundaries, and evidence remain yours.
START HERE Begin with one agent and one skill. Add parallelism only when the tasks are truly independent.
Verificationrun each gate separately

Checks become evidence

## Three layers.
Run each one alone.

Run a gate on its own line, print its exit code, attach the output. The result is the deliverable.

01 · STATIC

### Lint and types

Format, lint, type-check. Fast and scoped to one file. Run on every save.

`pnpm lint; echo "lint=$?" pnpm typecheck; echo "typecheck=$?"`
02 · BEHAVIOR

### Unit and contract

Tests that repeat. Run before claiming done.

`pnpm test; echo "test=$?" cd services/api && go test ./...`
03 · INTEGRATION

### Real UI and API

Drive the actual UI, API, or browser. Slower and flakier — only this catches mobile overflow and a missing 404.

`pnpm check:ui; echo "ui=$?" TURBO_FORCE=true pnpm e2e`
FOUR WAYS A GREEN REPORT IS FALSE
1
Pipe a gate

tail, grep, or head hide the real exit code — a pipeline returns the last command's status.

2
Swallow a rejection

A silent `.catch(() => {})` hides a panic, an upstream limit, or a partial failure.

3
Trust the cache

Turbo caches results. A gate that "passes" may not have run — use `TURBO_FORCE=true`.

4
Skip the third layer

Lint and unit can both be green while the page breaks on mobile and the API never returns 404.

RUN IT YOURSELF · two labs, under 10 minutes each
Path A · verification lab

Fill the four-row comparison strip on the starter. Run A naively, Run B with `$gate-discipline` and `$webapp-testing`.

Open the starter →Clone ↗ git.marcospaulo.dev.br/.../src/branch/pages/hands-on/starter Path B · rules lab

Toggle every rule off, run the prompt. Toggle every rule on, run it again. Compare diff size, gate invocations, and the names of checks the agent names back.

Open the rules lab →Clone ↗ git.marcospaulo.dev.br/.../src/branch/pages/hands-on/rules
Keep learning12 new readings + primary docs

Go deeper with official documentation, production case studies, Medium, and practitioner workflows. Rules and enforcement case study → Skills review desk → Primary references → 12-part reading path →

Navigate by ideashort chapters / one system

Prefer a focused chapter? Start with the route map, then jump directly to models, agents and worktrees, skill creation, rules, or the skills review desk.