Homework for Class 5
- Keep working on your Impossible Challenge project, and share where it’s at in the #homework channel by Class 5.
- Make sure your homework automation posts to the #homework channel every day, and sends us an email with an update on your progress. If your automation isn’t working, ask Codex to look at past automation runs, and help you debug why the automation isn’t working.
- Run the agent design game on your goals again. Pick a problem in your life, work through it with your agent, and spend several hours iterating on the solution.
- Prepare to show your work in demos next class. Demos will be done in groups of 3-4 students, with volunteers showing the whole class something they created in the past week.
- Memorize the terms in the attached glossary sheet. We’ll do a short quiz at the start of class 5 on these terms.
Study Guide for Class 5’s Quiz Ten terms on checking your agent’s work, where AI runs, and connecting it to apps. The sheet for the Class 5 quiz. Two pages, PDF. Open ↗ (opens in a new tab)
- Send Codex the following questions, and ask it to explain them to you (and ask follow up questions) until you feel satisfied with your understanding:
- What is the spiky frontier? What are some tasks you’re surprisingly good at, and some you’re surprisingly bad at, and how can I find out where your limits are?
- What is verification? How do you check your own work, and how should I ask you to verify something before you tell me it’s done?
- What is a test? How could tests check something I’m building, and can you write and run one for a project I’m working on?
- What is a goal in Codex? How does /goal work, what makes a goal easy for you to verify, and what is a Gauntlet Loop?
- What is a model provider? What actually happens when I send you a message, and why do I sometimes hit usage limits or see you slow down?
- What is a cloud computer? What could I run on one that I can’t run on my laptop, and how would I set up a task to run on a schedule?
- What is an API? Which of the apps I use have one, and what could you do for me through them?
- What is MCP? How is it different from an API, and which MCP connections do I already have set up?
- What is a plugin? Which plugins do I have installed in Codex, what does each one let you do, and which ones should I add?
- What are secrets? What are the safest ways to store secrets so my agents can use them?