Week 0 — Onboarding

~10 hours of self-paced setup so we can spend Day 1 building, not configuring.

Work through these in order. Post in #wins on Discord when you complete each one — that's how Kamal sees your progress.

The 11 modules

1. Welcome letter & program overview · 15 min
   Read the welcome letter Kamal emailed you, top to bottom. It explains everything below.
2. Account setup checklist · 30 min
   Sign in to GitHub (cohort org invite), Discord, Anthropic, Azure, ElevenLabs, Tavily, Langfuse. Most accounts are pre-provisioned — you just accept invitations.
3. Filesystem & terminal basics · 60 min
   Comfortable with cd, ls, paths, env vars. Custom guide linked from Discord.
4. VS Code essentials · 60 min
   Command palette, integrated terminal, multi-cursor, Git panel, debugger basics.
5. HTML5 + CSS3 — Slaying The Dragon · 5–7 hrs
   Free course at slayingthedragon.io. Foundation for everything visual.
6. Modern JavaScript quick reference · 2–3 hrs
   Arrow functions, destructuring, spread/rest, .map/.filter, async/await. Practice in the browser console.
7. TypeScript quick reference · 2–3 hrs
   Types, interfaces, generics, narrowing.
8. Python orientation · 1–2 hrs
   Imports, venv, uv, type hints, async/await, f-strings, dataclasses / Pydantic. Enough to read agent code.
9. Browser DevTools tour · 60 min
   Loom video + handout. Inspector, Network requests, Console, debugger.
10. Day-1 readiness check · 30 min
    Clone ask-jeeves-day1-check, run both stacks, personalize, push, open a PR. Confirms your laptop is wired up.
11. Read Process & Methodology §1–2 · 30 min
    Mental model for SDLC in the AI era + Product Engineer / 1-pizza team concept.

When to ask for help

Always, early, on Discord #help. The single biggest predictor of success in this program is asking for help when you're stuck rather than waiting.