The agent ecosystem course
  • 0Before you start
  • 1Claude Code
  • 2The mental model
  • 3Map your ecosystem
  • 4The brief
  • 5The connectors
  • 6The runbooks
  • 7Working hours
  • 8The ecosystem
  • 9The backup
  • 10Sharing skills
  • 11Getting found

The stages

  • 0Before you start
  • 1Claude Code
  • 2The mental model
  • 3Map your ecosystem
  • 4The brief
    • 4.01The brief, who it is
    • 4.02One at the top, one in each area
    • 4.03The top brief
    • 4.04The area brief
    • 4.05Ready when, what goes wrong, and homework
    • 4.06[BONUS]The canary, catching a chat that has gone stale
    • 4.07[BONUS]Five standing rules worth borrowing
    • 4.08[BONUS]Having your go first, so your judgement stays yours
    • 4.09[BONUS]Client checks, the mistakes it can actually catch
  • 5The connectors
  • 6The runbooks
  • 7Working hours
  • 8The ecosystem
  • 9The backup
  • 10Sharing skills
  • 11Getting found
BACK TO THE COURSE

Stage four, session one

The brief

The first thing you give the agent is who it is and how it behaves, written once in a file it reads at the start of every chat.

4.08[BONUS]

Having your go first, so your judgement stays yours

Let AI do your thinking for long enough and you get worse at it.

Doctors who got used to an AI spotting problems on the screen got worse at spotting them once it was switched off.

Your judgement is what your clients pay for, so it is the part worth keeping in use.

Without the rule

you
Ask what should go in the proposal
it
Decide what the client needs
it
Write the proposal around it
you
Tweak the wording
you
Review it before it goes out

The deciding is its, and you tweak it.

With the rule

you
Ask what should go in the proposal
it
Ask what you think first
you
Decide what the client needs
it
Give its view against yours, then write it
you
Review it before it goes out

The deciding is yours, and it tests it.

The fix is one rule, that it asks for your view before it gives its own.

It only asks on things that need your judgement, so a summary or a tidy-up still just gets done.

In the Claude app or ChatGPT, the line goes in your settings.

In Claude it goes in the instructions box, and in ChatGPT in the custom instructions.

The line for your settings
Before you answer anything that needs my judgement, ask my opinion first.

In your ecosystem, it goes in the top brief.

Paste this into a chat with your ecosystem folder open, and it adds the rule to your standing rules.

Add the rule to my brief
Open the CLAUDE.md at the top of this folder and add this to my standing rules, in the same wording and tone as the rest of the file. Before you answer anything that needs my judgement, ask my opinion first. That means a decision, a recommendation or my view on something, not a summary or a tidy-up. Then show me the change.

The doctors are from Budzyń and others, Endoscopist deskilling risk after exposure to artificial intelligence in colonoscopy, The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2025, where detection without the AI fell from 28 to 22 percent across four centres in Poland.

The agent ecosystem course

Having your go first, so your judgement stays yours

This is part 4.08 of the course. Start it free and it opens straight away, with no password.

A few quick questions come next. You will also get my Thursday newsletter, and you can unsubscribe from it without losing the course. How your details are kept is in the privacy policy.

Already have access? .