Week 2: Rules, memory, and knowledge
What does an AI agent need to know before it works on your project?
Design stage: Project setup and direction. Choose a topic, set up a project environment an AI agent and a human reader can both follow, and draft the direction of your project.
Prepare for class
Read: Chapter 2 again, and Chapter 11’s opening section on privacy as contextual integrity. The chapters are in Canvas, and the companion page has the materials that go with them.
Reading focus: Reread Chapter 2 for what belongs in a rules file, and why verification sits under rules. In Chapter 11, read the data-management section on privacy as contextual integrity. You will read the rest of the chapter in Week 14.
Bring the three core files in whatever state they are in, and a first idea of your question. List what an agent would get wrong in your project if nobody told it.
Weekly time budget
Outside class: 360 minutes (6 clock hours) maximum planned work per student. These allocations include all required preparation and submissions; they are planning estimates, not time logs for grading.
| Work | Planned minutes |
|---|---|
| Reading and discussion preparation | 90 |
| Exercises and project work, including troubleshooting | 180 |
| Writing, documentation, and reflection | 90 |
| Total | 360 |
Fill in the three core project files and draft the one-page direction memo. Try a first query on your topic to see whether a corpus of workable size exists before you commit to it.
How the weekly cap works. If required work will exceed the budget, save your attempt and contact the instructor to adjust scope or arrange support.
From the book
Chapter 2’s Reflective Exercises ask what you would put in the first version of each core file, and what verification your AGENTS.md should require. Chapter 11’s first section gives you a lens for any corpus, contextual integrity: do your uses preserve the norms under which its records were produced?
On the companion website: Chapter 2 project templates and recording · Getting started
Monday, January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
No class.
Wednesday, January 20: Project scoping workshop
12:45–2:00 PM · PV A203
Turn your topic into a question a corpus can inform, and outline the direction memo for Milestone 1. Write the verification requirements for your AGENTS.md: what an agent must check, save, and flag before a result counts. Use Chapter 11’s contextual-integrity lens on the records you plan to collect. Arrange leaders for the four Practice discussions.
Check the reasoning: A rule has to name an action an agent can follow. “Be careful with the data” leaves the decision to the agent; “do not modify files in data/raw/” does not. Rewrite one vague rule in your file.
Work to carry forward
Finish the three core files and the direction memo for Milestone 1. Record your setup route and model access in the project README.
Coming up: Milestone 1: Project setup and direction (5 points), due Wednesday, January 27.
Assignments and deliverables · Your project · The book and companion website