Day 01 of 07
Think like an AI director
Goal: Understand what agentic coding really means in plain English, and learn the habit that saves beginners the most pain: make the AI plan before it builds.
What to do
Understand the agentic coding mental model
Write this idea in your own words: agentic coding means giving AI a goal, constraints, and context, then letting it decide the build steps. You are the director. The AI is the builder.
Run your first planning conversation
Ask Claude to act like your AI coding agent for a simple landing page idea and force it to ask questions before doing anything.
I'm a non-technical entrepreneur learning agentic coding. I want you to act as my AI coding agent. My goal: Build a simple landing page for [describe your business in 1 sentence]. Before you build anything, ask me 5 questions to fully understand what I need. Then show me a plan in plain English of what you'll build. Don't write any code yet.Compare a weak brief and a strong brief
Use a bad prompt versus good prompt comparison so you can feel the difference in output quality.
I'm going to give you two descriptions of the same project. Tell me which one would produce better results and why.
BAD: "Make me a website."
GOOD: "Build a one-page website for my consulting business. I help small businesses with their finances. My target client is a restaurant owner aged 35-55. I need: a headline, a short paragraph about what I do, 3 bullet points of services, and a contact form with name, email, and message fields. Colors should be navy and gold. Keep it simple and professional."
After explaining the difference, rewrite my BAD brief into a GOOD brief for whatever I'm building: [describe your project in 1 sentence].Rewrite your own project into a clear brief opening
Take your current idea and rewrite it into one paragraph that names the project, the audience, the key sections or features, and the style.
Expected result
You understand the director mindset, you have seen Claude ask questions before acting, and you have turned your rough project idea into a clearer brief opening.
Key takeaway
- Agentic coding works best when you ask for a plan before a build.
- Specific beats ambitious every time.
- Your first job is clarity, not code.