Free · self-paced · agent-taught

Learn gentle-shell

Every lesson is written for two readers: you, here on the website, and your agent, through the course API. Your agent teaches each lesson, quizzes you, and checks your real setup.

Lessons

  1. Welcome

    Meet Gentle Shell School and how your agent will teach you.

  2. The Layers of Gentle Shell

    Distinguish Pi, gentle-shell, gentle-pi, Gentle AI, and optional companions.

  3. Install, Check, Update, and Remove

    Choose an installation path and maintain it without confusing Pi and Gentle Shell updates.

  4. The Agent Loop

    Understand how Pi turns your message into model requests, tool calls, and recorded evidence.

  5. Sessions and Context

    Use Pi's JSONL session trees, branches, and compaction without losing the thread of work.

  6. The Workspace and Terminal UI

    Navigate Pi and Gentle Shell's terminal workspace without mistaking views for hidden automation.

  7. Models and Providers

    Choose a model connection, authentication method, and thinking level without confusing subscriptions with API keys.

  8. Organic Driven Development

    Use ODD to turn an authorized request into recoverable, proportionate work.

  9. Authorize and Explore

    Separate permission to investigate from permission to change a project.

  10. Task Size and Risk

    Classify work by understanding, resumability, and consequences—not counts.

  11. Feature Tracking

    Keep large work recoverable with one feature document, a memory mirror, and a todo projection.

  12. Test-First and Verification

    Produce observable proof with RED, GREEN, alternate cases, and proportionate verification.

  13. Commits and Slices

    Package coherent behavior into reviewable work units and keep oversized delivery explicit.

  14. Focused Subagents

    Delegate bounded work without giving up ownership of the outcome.

  15. Model Profiles and Routing

    Assign models deliberately to the orchestrator and focused roles.

  16. Background Work

    Run and observe long-lived work without wasting turns polling it.

  17. Engram Memory

    Use optional persistent memory to preserve verified context across Pi sessions.

  18. Skills

    Learn how Pi discovers and loads focused instruction contracts for recurring work.

  19. Writing Skills

    Create concise, reusable LLM instruction contracts that make recurring work safer and clearer.

  20. Permission modes

    Choose Normal, Auto, or YOLO without confusing convenience for a security boundary.

  21. Native review

    Review a frozen candidate through independent lenses while keeping delivery decisions in repository policy.

  22. Judgment day

    Use a bounded blind dual adversarial review without turning reviewer output into delivery authority.

  23. Multi-session coordination

    Coordinate active orchestrator sessions without mistaking metadata for authority.

  24. Extensions and packages

    Add trusted executable behavior to Pi and distribute related resources together.

  25. MCP and codemode

    Connect external tool servers and compose bounded tool work with scripts.

  26. Customization

    Customize Pi and Gentle Shell deliberately while preserving clear configuration boundaries.

  27. Capstone: a small feature end to end

    Lead a small scratch-repository feature through ODD, evidence, delegation, and review.