Give everything a place
What should my organization know about my work, and which agents need it?
Until now your organization has been generic. It can run a job, but it doesn't know who you serve, what you sell or how you work. Today that changes, in two moves.
First you decide what goes in: which information the whole organization needs, which belongs with one department, which belongs to one job only, and which stays out completely. Then you tell it about your work, in a short interview, in your own words.
You end with two things: a list of what your organization may use and who needs it, and a brief about your work that every later lesson builds on.
This is the start, not the whole job. Week 2 is all about context: what your organization knows, where it keeps it, and how the right piece reaches the right agent. Everything you decide today is what you build on there.
A list of what your organization may use and who needs it. And a brief about your work, in your own words.
An agent with every file does worse work, not better. And an organization that knows nothing about you can only give generic answers.
You decide. The Professor helps you put it into words. Your Chief of Staff saves the operational records on your yes. You read them back and correct them.
You decide what goes in, who needs it, and what stays out.
Hunter's opening
Until now, your organization has worked from supplied examples. Today you begin telling it about your work. First decide what it may use and which agents need it. Then check what The Professor understood about you.
Think about a company where every employee had every file. Pricing in the intern's inbox. The payroll spreadsheet on the sales floor. Nobody could find anything, everyone was distracted, and one careless forward would have been a disaster.
You wouldn't choose to run a company that way. Information has a place. Finance has finance's files. Sales has its own. A few things are on the wall for everyone, and a few things are in a safe.
Your organization is about to learn your work. This lesson is where you give each thing its place.
A placement is a note about who needs something, and you can move it any time. Your brief is a first draft: you'll correct it today and keep improving it for four weeks. If you're unsure where something goes, leave it open. If you'd rather not use your own work yet, use the made-up workshop and do every step the same way.
One thing can't be taken back: anything you paste into the conversation has been shared. So the only real care this lesson asks of you is to decide what stays out before you paste, not after.
Before you start
Bring the unchanged before photo and the source plan you made in Lesson 3. Use your own permitted material, or continue with a fictional case.
Start or resume this lesson
- Open Claude Code. Look at the folder name under the message box. If it isn't your workbench, click it and choose Open folder, then pick your workbench folder.
Click the folder name, then Open folder. (Essentials screenshot, Wade's screen.)
Click the folder name, then Open folder. (Essentials screenshot, Wade's screen.)Click the folder name, then Open folder. (Essentials screenshot, Wade's screen.) - Check the folder name now shows your workbench.
The folder name under the message box is the folder you're working in. (Essentials screenshot: it shows agent-native-os, yours shows your workbench.)
The folder name under the message box is the folder you're working in. (Essentials screenshot: it shows agent-native-os, yours shows your workbench.)The folder name under the message box is the folder you're working in. (Essentials screenshot: it shows agent-native-os, yours shows your workbench.) - Start a new thread. This only works on the first message.
- Type @. A list of your agents appears.
- Pick The Professor from the list. Not in the list? Do step 6 of 0.3 Get your organization. Until then, skip the list and paste the words below as they are: they ask for The Professor by name.Screenshot needed. The @ list open in a workbench, with The Professor picked, and the blue tag at the top right. Nobody has taken this one yet.
- Look at the top right. A blue tag shows you're now talking to The Professor.
- Paste the words below and send.
It's always Claude Code or Codex doing the work. The agent you pick decides what job it's doing and what it's allowed to touch.
On Codex there is no list to pick from. You ask by name, in your first message: "Have The Professor handle this." Codex starts The Professor, and its answer comes back to you through Codex.
Claude Code: you call the agent in. New thread, type @, pick it from the list, and the whole thread then runs as that agent. Tyler proved this for the Chief of Staff on Sept 20. His notes say it is not yet tested for The Professor. If you type the name by hand and don't pick from the list, you get a weaker version: the main Claude passes your message along and retells the answer.
Codex: you only ask by name. His notes: "in Codex only the spawn-by-name route exists and the reply is relayed by the caller, with no session picker verified." So in Codex you are never talking to The Professor directly; Codex fetches its answer for you. An earlier version of this box said "type @ and choose the agent" for Codex. That was wrong and is fixed.
Why it matters for the lesson: "a blue tag shows you're talking to The Professor" is true in Claude Code only. A Codex student needs a different check that the agent really ran. Question for Tyler and Hunter: what does a Codex student look for?
essentials/shots/carry/06-...); they show Wade's screen and the Essentials folder, so a workbench version is worth retaking. Still to confirm with Hunter: the exact name students see in the @ list, and the Codex line (Q32). Candidate wording.Then paste this:
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to start or resume Lesson 4. Read course/workforce/prompts/anw-l04.txt and course/workforce/lessons/anw-l04.md completely. Check my approved saved work, ask one question, and wait. Keep my original baseline unchanged.
The full start prompt this points at (Hunter's, from the backend)
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to guide Lesson 4. Read course/workforce/lessons/anw-l04.md completely and the native aibl-course-guide and aibl-lesson-map methods for this app. This named lesson governs this activity; do not restart the legacy module interview or Chief of Staff hire. Before opening personal records, list the exact paths you need and wait for my approval. Then read my approved work/course/staff/before-picture.md, work/course/staff/starting-line.md, work/course/staff/baseline-answers.md and work/course/staff/source-plan.md unchanged. Check the actual original chart, three cases, three questions and exact answers, dated measures and staged source choices. A file's existence is not readiness. Report missing evidence; do not invent it or treat a later answer as an original baseline. Work one step and ask one question at a time, then wait for my actual answer. Help me distinguish kind, scope and sensitivity using five or six permitted lines, all four placement scopes and three excluded categories. Pending permission is not approval. Read and carry all thirteen interview questions and numbered choices in the lesson, including Parts 2 and 3. Offer a write-in and allow skipping any question. Reuse my prior answers for the three-part Professor interview and brief; leave skipped preferences and unknowns open. Try one explanation in my chosen teaching style, then ask whether to keep or change it. Preserve my exact answers at the top of founder-brief.md, separate from the corrected summary and adjustable teaching preferences. Ask for my correction and its effect on the next job, or my reason a precise sentence works; never invent my judgment. Show proposed approved-sources.md and founder-brief.md under work/course/staff/. The student takes the exact approved operational proposal to Chief of Staff in its own conversation. Chief of Staff obtains explicit approval of the exact text, saves within its supported scope and reads it back. The Professor records course-progress notes only, not the founder brief or approved-source register. Missing installed write scope remains a backend hold, never a reason to reassign the save to The Professor. Save no private reflection or excluded contents. Saving is optional and does not authorize continuation or activate any configuration. On return, inspect approved saved evidence, identify the next incomplete step and ask permission to continue. Use only an already established, approved continuation location; if absent, report the missing contract and ask where to resume without creating a new record or repeating completed work. Give a small cue or different example for confusion. Do not do the organization's work, file durable knowledge, change agents, connect accounts, send anything, or claim an unobserved run.
The student repo (agent-workforce, branch student, republished Sept 21) holds the old module files: course/workforce/lessons/anw-m1-03.md and prompts/anw-m1-03.txt. There is no anw-l04.md and no anw-l04.txt. Hunter's own notes say the lesson map still follows the old module sequence and needs reconciling before these prompts run. Until the lesson-numbered files are in the package, this start request fails. Tyler's Professor reads the lesson for its instructions, so the interview questions have to be in the lesson file itself.
Hunter's draft opens with the full start prompt (about 380 words of instructions to The Professor) in a copy box, then a short one that points at it. Both are his, from the backend, and he says they are candidates. For a student the short one is the one to paste; the long one reads as the agent's rulebook. Shown here: short one in the box, long one folded under it. Your call whether a student ever needs to see the long one.
The Professor helps you make and record these decisions. You can change a placement or improve your brief later. You can also leave a question open. Decide what stays out before pasting it: changing a label afterward does not undo information already shared.
Part 1: which agents need this?
Imagine an organization where every agent receives every file. A writing task arrives with payroll records, old proposals, meeting notes, and three versions of the same policy. More information hasn't made the job clearer.
Each run has limited working context, like a small desk. Give it the job, the relevant instructions, and the information needed to do that job. Your organization can hold much more than any one job needs.
In Lesson 3 you sorted by kind: fact, voice, responsibility, procedure, rule, or today's ask. Now sort by scope: which work should use it. These answer different questions: what is it, and who needs it? A reply template is a procedure or writing aid. Customer Support may be the department that uses it.
Organization-wide
Several roles need the same approved information.
What you offer and whom you serve.
Department
It supports that department's particular work.
Customer Support's reply checklist or Growth's proposal template.
This job only
It is needed for this request, without becoming general knowledge.
A permitted appointment detail for one draft.
Private: keep out
It must not enter the AI conversation or supplied files.
A category of excluded records, named without copying its contents.
Most business facts can be needed in more than one place. A cancellation policy may matter to both Sales and Customer Support. Don't force it into a department merely because that department used it first. Department-specific templates and checklists are often clearer examples.
A placement records intended use. It doesn't install a technical barrier or prove what a run received. Chief must supply the relevant approved inputs, and you inspect the work. A link or pointer to another project doesn't grant permission to read it.
Hunter's wording
A placement records intended use. It doesn't install a technical barrier or prove what a run received. Chief must supply the relevant approved inputs, and you inspect the work. A link or pointer to another project doesn't grant permission to read it. Tyler's demonstration used a workbench as a home base for other projects; it did not require copying every project into one folder.
Check permission before placement
Ask whether you may share the material with the AI service and for this purpose. Public, internal, confidential, and restricted describe sensitivity; they are not the same as the four scopes above. Something can be useful across departments and still be inappropriate to share.
- Public information still needs a relevant source and a permitted use.
- Internal information follows your organization's sharing rules.
- Confidential material needs the appropriate permission and a narrowly defined use. Leave it out when that is unclear.
- Restricted material, including passwords, access keys, and account numbers, stays out of the exercise.
A redacted excerpt must still be permitted to share.
A file being on your computer doesn't mean its contents stay there when an AI service reads it. Handling depends on the service, account, settings, and connections in use. If you cannot establish permission or handling, use the fictional route. You do not need to resolve an organization's data policy to learn this lesson.
Where the Librarian fits
Agents need the relevant information for their jobs. The Knowledge Librarian has a separate responsibility: maintaining approved, cited knowledge. It proposes what to save and where.
Hunter's wording
In Tyler's updated design, it proposes what to save and where.
It saves durable knowledge, information kept for future jobs, only after your approval. It records sources and dates and flags conflicts. The Professor records your course decisions; it doesn't replace the Librarian's filing work.
This lesson prepares the placements and brief. Week 2 develops the context process, using those choices rather than asking you to start again. Job-only and private material must not quietly become durable knowledge.
Read the diagram as a choice about use, not a diagram of proven access controls.
four labeled scopes, with department templates as examples; show the student's decision, approved placement record, and later Librarian filing. Keep kind, scope, and sensitivity visibly distinct.
Everything has a place.Where each kind of thing your organization knows gets filed, and who decides. A choice about use, not a lock.
Hunter approved title-first naming in his Module 1 disposition, but this file predates that. "Chief" on its own six times; "Chief of Staff" in full nowhere.
Part 2: meet The Professor as your learning companion
You already met The Professor in Module 1. Now tell it enough about how you learn to make the next explanation useful. Chief talks with you about work that needs doing. The Professor helps you understand that work. Their voices have different purposes.
This also differs from Lesson 3's baseline: there, you asked the system questions before adding context. Here, The Professor asks you. The original answers stay unchanged.
The interview has three parts. These are things to discuss one at a time, not a form you must finish before continuing:
Hunter's wording
Sara's interview has three parts. These are things to discuss one at a time, not a form you must finish before continuing:
| Part | What The Professor should learn |
|---|---|
| You and your work | What to call you; your background and current role; a short description of your work; your experience with AI and coding agents; what you want to be able to do by the end of the course. You may mention a DISC or Enneagram description you already use, if helpful. |
| How you learn | Whether seeing, doing, reading, or talking helps; whether you prefer the big picture or details first; whether a hint, worked example, or guided step helps when stuck; whether analogies help and which subjects are familiar. |
| How The Professor talks to you | Plain and direct, humorous, or familiar industry language; a character or public figure as a shorthand for a communication preference, if you want one. Name the useful qualities rather than treating it as that person. |
- What should The Professor call you?
- What's your background, and what's your role now?1. I run my own business2. I work inside a company3. I work for clients or a mix4. Something else, I'll say5. I'm not sure
- Tell me about your work: who you serve, what you deliver, how work moves through your week, what good looks like, and where you need to be the one who decides.1. Let's go one at a time2. I'll describe it in a paragraph3. Use a practice case instead4. I'm not sure
- How familiar are you with AI, 1 to 10?1. 1 to 3: I've barely used it2. 4 to 6: I use it most weeks3. 7 to 9: it's part of how I work4. 10: I build agents5. I'm not sure
- Have you used a coding agent like Claude Code or Codex before?1. Only in Essentials2. A few times before that3. Regularly4. Never, Essentials was my first5. I'm not sure
- What do you want to be able to do four weeks from now?1. Run my own work through an agent organization2. Build one for a client or my company3. Understand it well enough to lead a team that does4. I'm not sure yet5. I'm not sure
- Your DISC or Enneagram type, if you know it.1. I know it, here it is2. I don't, skip3. I'm not sure
- How do you learn something new best: seeing it, doing it, reading it, talking it through? What makes it stick?1. Seeing it2. Doing it3. Reading it4. Talking it through5. I'm not sure
- Big picture first, or details first?1. Big picture first2. Details first3. Depends on the topic4. I'm not sure
- When you get stuck, what helps most: a hint, a worked example, or being walked through it?1. A hint2. A worked example3. Walk me through it4. Let me struggle a bit first5. I'm not sure
- Do analogies help you? From what world: food, sports, movies, your own industry?1. Yes, from my industry2. Yes, from everyday life3. Yes, from sports, food or film4. Not much, keep it literal5. I'm not sure
- Plain and direct, funny, or your industry's own language?1. Plain and direct2. A bit of humour3. My industry's language4. Formal5. I'm not sure
- If The Professor could sound like anyone, a celebrity or a character, who?1. Someone I'll name2. No one in particular, keep your own voice3. I'm not sure
You can skip any preference. These are adjustable requests about teaching, not a diagnosis or a fixed label for how you learn. Ask for one explanation in the chosen style, then decide whether it actually helps.
The work brief needs a little concrete information too: whom you serve, what you deliver, how work moves, what good looks like, and where your decision is required. Reuse answers you already gave. A deeper business intake belongs in Week 2; today you need enough for one useful test.
On these five, be as specific as you'd be with a new hire on their first day. The more precise this is, the better every later job, because the Chief of Staff and the Writer work from it. Keep confidential details and client names out.
His table says what each part covers; your page showed the twelve questions a student will be asked, three columns, "skip any of them." Your ruling (C143): the interview is the heart of this lesson and the student should see it before it starts. Your figure is shown under his table.
Try it
1. Give each line a place
Reopen your staged prompt. Choose five or six permitted lines and explain who needs each. Include an organization-wide example, a department example, a job-only example, and an exclusion category. If your material doesn't supply one, use a clearly labeled fictional example. A kept-out item is a category name, never its private contents.
Say this to The Professor:
Before opening my before photo or the lines I sorted in Lesson 3, list the exact files and wait for my yes. Then open only what I approved. Go through them with me one at a time. For each one I'll say who needs it: the whole organization, one department, only this job, or nobody. Save my choice and my reason as a course-progress note in my own words, after you show me the text and I say yes. This is not the operational approved-source register; Chief of Staff saves that after my separate exact approval.
2. Check what may be shared
For each included source, say what may be used and for which job or scope. Name three categories you will keep out, using fictional categories if needed. Where permission is uncertain, leave the item pending. Review the proposed placement record and approve saving only the text you intend to share.
Say this to The Professor:
Before you read anything, list exactly which files you would open for this lesson, and wait for my yes. Then help me name three kinds of information that stay out, with my reason for each. Don't ask me to paste any of it. Where I'm not sure I'm allowed to share something, mark it pending.
3. Let The Professor interview you
Work through the three parts above one question at a time, reusing existing answers. Give enough permitted work context for the short brief. Ask for a small explanation in your chosen teaching style, such as kind versus scope. Keep or change the preference based on that explanation.
Say this to The Professor:
Interview me. Ask one question at a time and wait for my answer: first about me and my work, then how I learn, then how you should talk to me. Reuse anything I've already told you. When we're done, show me your summary separately from my own words. Then explain one thing from this lesson back to me, the way I asked, and ask me whether to keep that style.
4. Correct the brief and approve it
Read your exact answers separately from The Professor's summary. Find a vague or mistaken sentence and improve it. For example, “draft for my clients” becomes “draft for first-time managers who read on their phones.” If the summary is already precise, explain why one sentence is useful rather than inventing an error. Say how your clarification affects the next job. Approve the final record and read it back.
Say this to The Professor:
Show me my exact answers and your summary side by side. I'll point at one sentence in the summary that is vague or wrong and give you the better one. Then tell me how that change would affect the next job. Show me the final brief and the proposed approved-source list. I will take the approved proposal to my Chief of Staff, which asks before saving those operational records and reads them back. You keep only my course-progress notes.
You can continue Dana's coaching practice from Lesson 3 or the Small Team, Clear Message workshop from Lesson 1. Use the same case throughout this module. For the workshop, use the supplied audience and writing notes; the date remains unconfirmed and the link missing. Add a clearly labeled fictional Operations setup checklist to practise a department placement. A private payroll category stays outside. Describe the intended workshop result and what a human must confirm before an invitation could be sent. Do not turn an unknown capacity, date, or link into a fact.
What you'll keep
The approved placements and exclusions belong in your course records as approved-sources.md. The work brief is founder-brief.md, with your answers at the top and the summary below. Your learning and explanation preferences remain identifiable as your choices, not business facts.
work/course/staff/founder-brief.md and approved-sources.md are the files Tyler's Professor writes, in this shape (your answers on top, its summary below, after your yes). before-picture.md matches too. Three names in the long start prompt, starting-line.md, baseline-answers.md and source-plan.md, come from Lesson 3 and appear nowhere in Tyler's agents; The Professor writes whatever the lesson names, so it works, but nothing in the build guarantees they exist. Tyler's Professor also writes a priorities.md that no lesson mentions.
Your Chief of Staff shows the exact operational changes, waits for your yes, saves them under work/course/staff/ and reads them back. The Professor saves only approved course-progress notes, including teaching preferences and learning decisions. You don't have to edit a file yourself. Neither the brief nor the preferences replace the before photo. Ask to see which approved parts reach the next job.
Your Chief of Staff is instructed to read this brief before each job; it has no memory between conversations, so the file is the memory. Ask which saved brief it actually read when you return. Improve it any time. Your earlier answers stay, and new ones get a date.
Say this to The Professor:
Open my placements list and my brief. Show me my placements, my three exclusions, my exact answers and the sentence I corrected. Tell me anything that is still unanswered.
Something seems to belong everywhere? Name the jobs that need it. Don't give it to every agent just in case.
A useful source has private details in it? Don't paste it. Check whether a cut-down excerpt is allowed, or use the made-up workshop.
The summary says something you didn't say? Correct it in your own words, and read the saved version back.
A smaller step. Choose one thing to share and one kind of thing to keep out, and say what makes them different.
Hunter's table
| What you notice | What to do |
|---|---|
| A fact seems useful to several departments | Name the jobs that need it. A shared fact need not become several conflicting copies. |
| A source contains private details | Leave it out or use a permitted, minimal excerpt prepared before sharing. |
| A placement feels uncertain | Record the question. You can revise the decision later. |
| The summary contains an assumption | Replace it with your words or mark it unknown. Keep the original answer separate. |
| The Professor's chosen voice distracts you | Ask for plain language and try the same explanation again. |
Before you finish
You can explain the difference between kind, scope, and sensitivity; defend one shared placement and one department placement; and identify what was left out. Your brief distinguishes your words from the summary. You've checked one explanation against your learning preference and can find the approved records.