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General Agents

The tools that don't just talk — they do. Learn to drive one; everything else in the book builds on it.

Foundations taught you what AI is and how to keep your own judgment while using it. This section is where you pick up the tool you will use for the rest of the book: a general agent, an AI that does not just answer, it acts. It opens your files, reads them, writes and runs code, and uses other apps to get a task done.

There are two doors into this section, and which you take depends only on who you are:

Same idea, different audience: an AI you direct to do real work, rather than one you only chat with.

This is the hinge of the whole book. Almost everything after it assumes you can drive a general agent. Mode 1 (solve a problem once) and Mode 2 (manufacture a permanent worker) are both, at heart, "you and a general agent." Even the optional Personal Agent Harnesses bridge installs and runs its harness through one of these tools. So this is the single most-reused skill you will learn. And later, the same general agent you drive here becomes the tool you use to build workers. Same tool, bigger job.

The section in three stages​

The four courses move you along one line: from holding the tool every second, to directing it precisely, to designing a loop that runs it for you.

Diagram of the General Agents path as three stages, left to right. A note on the left shows you arrive from Foundations. Stage 1, "Drive," is learning to operate a general agent: Claude Code and OpenCode, or Cowork and OpenWork. Stage 2, "Direct," is Spec-Driven Development. Stage 3, "Delegate the loop," is Loop Engineering. A forward arrow leads on to Modes 1 and 2. A caption reads: Drive, then Direct, then Delegate the loop.

Stage 1 — Drive​

Learn to operate a general agent well. Do the course that matches you; you can pick up the other later.

  • Agentic Coding: Claude Code & OpenCode — for people who work with code. Plan mode, context management, the rules file, skills, subagents, and connectors (MCP): how to drive a coding agent so it reads your files, proposes a plan, makes the edits, and lets you check the result.
  • Cowork & OpenWork for Professionals — for everyone else. The same kind of agent in a desktop app built for professional work (documents, spreadsheets, slides, research), so you do not need to touch a terminal to put one to work.

Stage 2 — Direct​

Driving gets you results; directing gets you the right result, every time.

  • Spec-Driven Development — stop giving the agent vague instructions and start handing it a written spec: exactly what to do, on what, and what "done" means. A clear spec is the difference between an agent that guesses and one that hits the target, and it is the very first thing you carry forward when you cross into Mode 2.

Stage 3 — Delegate the loop​

The last step in this section is the first taste of autonomy, still inside the tools you already know.

  • Loop Engineering — the leap from holding the tool to designing a system that prompts the agent for you. You build a small loop that wakes up, looks at what changed, decides what is worth doing, hands each job to an agent, checks the result, and calls you only for the decisions that really need a person. The valuable skill moves from the prompt you write to the loop you design. It is the natural doorway to everything that comes next.

What you need first​

Do the Foundations section first, especially How to Think in the AI Era (keeping your judgment) and Skills & Connectors (the plugins a general agent uses to reach your tools and data). You do not need to be a programmer: if you are not, take the Cowork & OpenWork door and you will be fine.

Where it leads​

Once you can drive, direct, and loop a general agent, the rest of the book opens up. The optional Personal Agent Harnesses section sits just ahead, if you want to own a worker that runs on your own infrastructure. Then comes the fork the whole book turns on: Mode 1 — Problem-Solving, where you use a general agent to solve a problem once, and Mode 2 — Manufacturing, where you build a permanent worker that solves it forever.

The book's arc in one line: Foundations to understand, General Agents to drive, the two modes to put to work.

Start with the door that fits you: Claude Code & OpenCode if you work with code, Cowork & OpenWork if you do not.