Practice lab

Here are five short hands-on exercises, 10 to 20 minutes each, that you can do with a free account. Do them in order, because each one builds on the last.

The lab is a first taste. They use small files and short jobs. You will run the full Brightline payment run in Chapter 5, when you have learned to write a brief properly.

Before you start

You need:

• The Claude desktop app with a free account. Part 0 shows you how to set it up.
• A spreadsheet app, such as Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, for Task 2.
• The lab files. Download brightline-lab-f00.zip and unzip it. It holds two lab files and a short README:
  • payment-policy-v3.md: Brightline's six payment rules.
  • office-orders.csv: this week's office-supply orders.
• The ChatGPT desktop app, only for the optional parts of Task 4 and for Task 5.

Brightline is a made-up company, and the suppliers and numbers are invented. Still, do not paste real company data into this lab.

Task 1. Ask a question, then hand over a job

Goal: see the difference between asking a question and handing over a whole job. Time: 15 minutes.

1. In Claude, start a new conversation and ask a question:

   What should a small company check before it pays a supplier's bill?

   Read the answer. It is useful, but it is general advice, and you would still have to turn it into something your team can use.

2. Start another new conversation. Attach payment-policy-v3.md, using the + or paperclip button next to the message box. Then hand over a job with a four-part brief. The words in parentheses label each part. You can leave them in:

   Read the attached payment policy (inputs). Make a one-page checklist for the accounting team to use before each payment run. You are done when each numbered rule appears once, with its number, and the last line, about who may send payments, appears as a note without a number (outcome). Make it a document I can edit, one rule per line (format). Do not share it with anyone (autonomy).

3. Wait for the document. Open it.

Check your work. Open the policy next to the checklist. Find rules 1 to 6 on the checklist, one by one. Does each rule appear once, with its number? Then look for the policy's last line, about who may send payments. Is it there, as a separate note without a number? This is the done-when, and you are the one checking it.

What to notice:

• The question gave you an answer. The brief gave you finished work, built from your company's rules.
• The last line of the policy has no number, but it may be the most important line on the page. A good checklist keeps both the numbering and the meaning: it does not turn that line into a rule 7, and it does not leave it out. If your checklist gets either wrong, tell Claude exactly what to fix. You just gave feedback on evidence, not on a feeling.
• Close the Claude app and open it again. The conversation is still there, and so is the document if Claude made one, because Claude saves them to your account, not to the borrowed computer.

Task 2. Check the work, not the claim

Goal: check a total yourself, with a program you trust, instead of trusting what the worker says. Time: 15 minutes.

1. Start a new conversation in Claude. Attach office-orders.csv. Send this brief:

   Use the attached file of this week's office orders (inputs). Work out the total cost of the orders and the total for each supplier, doing the math with a small program, not in your head. You are done when every row of the file is counted once and the supplier totals add up to the grand total (outcome). Give me a small table, one sentence with the grand total, and a short note on what you checked and what the checks found (format). Only report. Do not change the file (autonomy).

2. Write down Claude's grand total. If Claude says it cannot run a program on your plan, carry on. Your spreadsheet is the check either way.

3. Now check it yourself. Open office-orders.csv in your spreadsheet app. In Google Sheets, choose File, then Import, then Upload.

   • In cell F1, the first empty column, type the heading line total.
   • In cell F2, multiply the quantity by the unit price: type =D2*E2. Copy the formula down to row 8, the last order. You can drag the small square at the corner of the cell.
   • Under the last line total, add them up with =SUM(F2:F8).

4. Compare your total with Claude's.

Check your work. Your spreadsheet total and Claude's total should be exactly the same, to the cent. If they differ, find the row that causes it before you trust either number.

What to notice:

• Look at order O-206. It is a return, so its quantity is negative. A careless total adds it instead of taking it away. Did Claude handle it? Did Claude's note on its checks mention it?
• Claude said what it checked. That note helps, but it is still Claude's account of its own work. Your spreadsheet is the check. In this book, totals are always checked with a program you trust.

Task 3. Words or permissions?

Goal: see that what stops a worker is a permission, not a sentence in the brief. Time: 10 minutes.

Do this task only if no banking or payment app is connected to your Claude account and you have not turned on computer use.

1. In the Task 2 conversation, type:

   Do not take any action. Just tell me: could you send a $50 payment to a supplier from this conversation? What would you need to be able to do it?

2. Read the reply. Claude will most likely say it cannot. Notice why: Claude has no access to any payment system. Your brief in Task 2 said "Only report", but that sentence is not what makes payment impossible. The missing access is.

3. Now look at your own settings. In Claude's settings, find the list of connected apps, called connectors. On a new account, no app is connected yet. Each app you connect adds something Claude is able to do.

4. Go back to your Task 1 conversation. If your plan shows a setting for how much Claude may do without asking, choose the option where it asks first (the tour calls it Manual). Then ask Claude to make one small change to the checklist, such as adding a title. Notice that it asks before it acts. If you see no such setting, your plan may not have it yet. Skip to the check.

Check your work. Write one sentence in your own words that explains the difference between "Only report" in a brief and having no payment connector.

What to notice: the brief tells the worker what it should do. Permissions decide what it is able to do. When the stakes are high, such as money, rely on permissions, not on words.

Task 4. Set a goal and improve in rounds

Goal: try the method the Panaversity team uses for its own writing. Time: 20 minutes.

1. Start a new conversation in Claude and type:

   Write a short explanation, about 150 words, of what an "AI Worker platform" is, for a friend who has never used AI for work. Use only the first page of The AI Agent Factory as your source. I will paste it below.

   Below it, in the same message, paste the text of the section "What has changed" from the first page. Then send.

2. When the draft arrives, ask Claude to grade it:

   Grade this draft out of 10 in three areas: accuracy, quality, and how easy it is for a beginner to understand. Give one reason for each grade.

3. Set the goal:

   Our goal is 9.5 in each area. Accuracy means every fact can be found in the source I pasted. Improve the draft, grade it again, and repeat until it reaches 9.5 in each area, or until you have done three rounds. Show the grades after each round. At the end, list any problem you could not fix, even if the grade is below 9.5.

   The limit of three rounds keeps the task short and saves your plan's usage.

4. Optional, if you have the ChatGPT app. Paste both the final draft and the same source text into ChatGPT, and ask:

   Below are a short explanation and the source it is based on. Review the explanation for a beginner. List any claim that the source does not support or that contradicts it. Then grade it out of 10 for accuracy, quality and ease of understanding, and list the three most useful changes.

   Paste ChatGPT's review back into the Claude conversation and ask Claude to use it to improve the draft.

5. Now do the last step yourself. Compare each sentence of the final draft with the first page. Is every fact really there?

Check your work. You can name one change Claude made in the rounds, and one fact you checked against the first page.

What to notice:

• Claude ran the rounds by itself once you gave it a goal. That goal works like a done-when.
• The grades are a guide, not proof. A draft can score 9.5 and still contain a wrong fact. The person at the end, you, is the check.

Task 5 (optional). The same brief in ChatGPT

Goal: see that one good brief works on both apps. Time: 15 minutes.

1. In the ChatGPT desktop app, turn on Work, the switch above the message box. If you see no Work switch, your app may already have merged Chat and Work. Just send the brief.
2. Attach payment-policy-v3.md and send the same brief you used in Task 1, word for word.
3. Open the document ChatGPT makes.

Check your work. Apply the same done-when: does every numbered rule appear once, with its number, and is the note about who may send payments there without a number? Compare the two checklists side by side.

What to notice: you did not rewrite the brief for ChatGPT. As the tour shows, both vendors give the same advice: describe the outcome and how to check it, not the steps. To compare the two apps fairly, give them the same job, the same files, the same done-when and the same limits, and check the results yourself. Chapter 5 does this with the full payment run.

What you practiced

The Five Horizons comes next. It shows where this book is going, from one AI Worker to whole companies and countries built around AI.