🐝 The Sting
Learn AI in public. Embrace the ridicule. Ship daily. Share experience and results. Measure.
Things built: 19 People watching: 19 Cashflow:-$152
🤖 🧠 Learning
Making the most out of December plans. Day nine.
Been looking at a bunch of my latest posts and noticed how philosophical I get from time to time.
It’s weird.
Because this newsletter is supposed to be super practical. It’s a log of the things I’m trying out with AI. Why they work. Why they don’t.
But fairly often, doing just that gives me deep thoughts.
And then you guys have to read them.
It’s inevitable, though, when trying to figure out a new technology, that a lot of the time is spent in developing a new framework to make sense out of it. If I need to change the way I work, or think about working with this tool, then I’m going to get a little woo-woo at one point.
I thank you for you indulgence.
One of the things I’ve mentioned before is the power of good instructions when you’re looking for good results from your favourite 🤖 .
That seems obvious, on the surface. But it’s also little more than an unconsummated tease without details on how to do it better. You know what I mean, digital labor.
I’ve been working on learning to build workflows powered by some kind of AI component. The tool I’ve been using is n8n. And that work has been informing the way I work with Projects in Claude or Gems in Gemini.
The value of the work these agents depends on how good you are at telling it what to do. There are two components to this, from my perspective.
First, do you know what you want? Can you describe it? I think what many people imagine when presented with the dream of having AI do all of their work, is that they will mumble something general, and then the AI will know what to do with it. Sort of like a human being that’s able to catch a bunch of unexpressed clues to deliver a close approximation of a general desire. It’s a terrible way to get consistent results from a machine. For starters, you’re going to have to get very specific about what you want, how you want it. It’s a magic process, really. It’s why so much of my work with AI has felt like personal development. It forces you to be specific.
Second, you have to learn to speak that specificity in a way that is easy for the 🤖 to consume. It’s not working for you if you don’t work for it first. The closer you can get to a familiar format, meaning some form of programming language, the better the results. This is a pain in the ass, because you have to move away from what initially was so attractive about AI, that you could just talk to it in natural language. That’s not gone, but if you spend a couple of hours learning how to configure instructions in XML or JSON formats, you can get that much closer to actual magic.
🍯 🦡 Building
What did I ship today?
A basic framework for expressing my instructions to an agent in XML. I got this from a Skool community, AI Foundations. It’s been super helpful so far.
<AgentInstructions>
<Role>
<Name>AGENT_NAME_HERE</Name>
<Description>AGENT_DESCRIPTION_HERE</Description>
</Role>
<Goal>
<Primary>PRIMARY_GOAL_HERE</Primary>
</Goal>
<Instructions>
<Instruction>INSTRUCTION_HERE</Instruction>
</Instructions>
<Examples>
<Example>
<UserInput>
USER_INPUT_EXAMPLE 1
</UserInput>
<AgentOutput>
AGENT_OUTPUT_EXAMPLE 1
</AgentOutput>
</Example>
<Example>
<UserInput>
USER_INPUT_EXAMPLE 2
</UserInput>
<AgentOutput>
AGENT_OUTPUT_EXAMPLE 2
</AgentOutput>
</Example>
<Example>
<UserInput>
USER_INPUT_EXAMPLE 3
</UserInput>
<AgentOutput>
AGENT_OUTPUT_EXAMPLE 3
</AgentOutput>
</Example>
</Examples>
</AgentInstructions>🧰 The Beginner’s Stack
Tools I am using to fake being an expert.
1. Beehiiv (The Platform)
"I tried other platforms, but Beehiiv is the only one that makes growth feel like a game. It’s what runs this newsletter. The Deal: You get a free trial + 20% off (I get a commission to keep the lights on)."
2. Wispr Flow (The Time Saver)
"I hate typing. This tool turns my rambling voice notes into perfect text. It’s the only way I can write this much every day. The Deal: We both get a free month if you try it."
3. Emergent (The Coding Cheat)
"I am not a coder. Emergent is my 'vibe coding' partner that writes the messy parts for me. Essential if you want to build apps without a CS degree."
🧘♂ Last Word.
Deep thoughts are nice but specific instructions are what brings home the bacon.
Making daily progress,
Bram Fellow Beginner & Chief Mistake Maker
P.S. Did I do something totally backwards today? Or do you have a better prompt for this? Hit reply and tell me. I’m here to learn just as much as you are. (I read every single email).