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Course Outline

The Four-Level Personalisation Stack

Level 1 | Knows – Rules and AGENTS.md

Key Topics:
• Establishing project conventions and coding standards
• Documenting architecture and technical constraints
• Developing tool-neutral project guidance
• Ensuring consistency across development teams and AI tools

Level 2 | Can – Skills

Key Topics:
• Developing reusable units of specialist knowledge
• Loading contextual information only when necessary
• Minimising context size while enhancing task performance
• Building libraries of reusable workflows and expertise

Level 3 | Reaches – MCP

Key Topics:
• Connecting AI tools to external systems and services
• Accessing repositories, databases, and documentation sources
• Extending the capabilities of AI coding assistants
• Implementing secure integrations and governance controls

Level 4 | Acts – Agents

Key Topics:
• Understanding autonomous AI agents and their capabilities
• Reading, writing, testing, and revising code autonomously
• Managing goal-driven workflows and delegated tasks
• Establishing oversight and human review mechanisms for agentic systems

Day 1 | Delegation and Extending the Tools

Module 1 | From Assistant to Agent

Key Topics:
• Distinguishing between AI assistants and autonomous agents
• Comparing inline code completion with agentic delegation
• How agentic workflows transform the structure of development tasks
‡ Identifying tasks suitable for agent delegation
• Best practices for collaborating with autonomous AI systems

Module 2 | Delegations That Work Without Babysitting

Key Topics:
• Crafting effective instructions for AI agents
• Providing adequate context and business requirements
• Defining constraints and boundaries for execution
• Establishing clear acceptance criteria and success measures
• Minimising human intervention while maintaining quality

Module 3 | Personalisation Stack and What Applies Where

Key Topics:
• Understanding the four-level personalisation stack
• Using Rules and AGENTS.md to define project conventions
• Determining which personalisation mechanisms apply in various scenarios
• Managing context efficiently across tools and projects
• Creating consistent AI-assisted development environments

Module 4 | Skills and Subagents

Key Topics:
• Creating reusable Skills for common workflows and tasks
• Packaging specialist knowledge for repeated use
• Understanding the role of subagents and isolated contexts
• Delegating bounded tasks to specialised agents
• Improving efficiency through modular AI workflows

Day 2 | Connecting Tools, Parallelism and Governance

Module 5 | MCP: Connect and Build

Key Topics:
• Understanding the principles of the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• Connecting AI tools to external systems and services
• Integrating browsers, databases, repositories, and documentation sources
• Building a custom MCP server
• Managing access control and security considerations

Module 6 | The Disciplined Agentic Workflow

Key Topics:
• Establishing a repeatable AI-assisted development process
• Brainstorming and planning with AI agents
• Building and implementing solutions collaboratively
• Testing and validating generated outputs
• Reviewing and finalising deliverables with appropriate verification steps

Module 7 | Parallel Development

Key Topics:
• Running multiple AI agents simultaneously
• Working with isolated branches and Git worktrees
• Coordinating development activities across parallel workflows
• Merging and validating outputs from multiple agents
• Improving productivity through parallel execution strategies

Module 8 | Risks, Review and Governance

Key Topics:
• Evaluating and vetting external Skills and MCP servers
• Understanding security and governance risks
• Managing permissions and access rights
• Protecting sensitive data and intellectual property
• Establishing review processes and quality assurance practices

Module 9 | AI Adoption in Software Development: Use Cases and Next Steps

Key Topics:
• How organisations are integrating AI into the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
• Real-world use cases and implementation examples from different industries
• Common AI adoption approaches: individual adoption, team-based adoption and organisation-wide enablement
• Typical use cases across the SDLC:
• Requirements gathering and documentation
• Code generation and prototyping
• Testing and quality assurance
• Code review and refactoring
• Documentation and knowledge management
• DevOps and incident management
• Governance models, policies and security considerations
• Measuring productivity and ROI of AI-assisted development
• Building an internal AI adoption roadmap
• Defining practical next steps for participants and their teams

Interactive Discussion Workshop

• Current challenges within the participants' development teams
• Identification of high-value use cases for immediate adoption
• Risks, blockers and organisational considerations
• Creation of an initial action plan for AI integration.

Requirements

Participants should have professional development experience, be comfortable using the terminal, and possess working knowledge of Git. Additionally, they should regularly use an AI coding tool or have completed the Foundations course.

Audience

This course is intended for developers currently using AI tools, technical leads overseeing team adoption, and platform or DevOps engineers who build Skills and MCP servers.

 14 Hours

Number of participants


Price per participant

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