Courses, walkthroughs and field notes for people who would rather own their stack than rent it.
Some items take an hour. Most take ten minutes and solve one problem. Everything is free, self-contained, and written to be used on a real machine — not admired in a tab you never reopen.
A discipline, a skill, a build, a reference and a fix are not the same thing. Each one gets the shape it needs, so nothing is padded out to fill a course and nothing important is squeezed into a tip.
A discipline, taught properly: modules, a diagram per idea, a quiz that explains.
One tool, stood up correctly. Numbered steps, a verification step, a way back out.
A real build from a blank folder, every command shown, checkpoints along the way.
A patch job: symptom, triage, cause, fix, prevention. Our name for a fix card.
Each is a full discipline in ten modules — the model, the mechanics, the mistakes people actually make, and one thing to do this week. They assume no prior knowledge and they do not waste the first ten minutes on a syllabus.
How an agent actually works — the loop, the tools, the context budget, the eval, and what breaks when you leave it running overnight.
Requirements, architecture, interfaces, trade studies, verification and the lifecycle — the discipline that stops a build from becoming a surprise.
From writing code to shipping it: version control as a safety net, tests that catch real problems, debugging, review and deployment.
Follow one page load from a cable to a certificate — packets, addresses, names, trust, boundaries, and the five places it breaks.
Seven tracks, from foundations to security. Each mixes formats: a course to learn the discipline, a guide to stand the tool up, a walk-through to build with it, a phixi for when it breaks. The items below are framed and queued — anything marked live is what you can read today.
How computers, files, networks and systems actually work — the layer every other item assumes.
One language at a time, taught as a series: read it, write it, debug it, ship with it.
From an HTML file on your disk to an authenticated API behind your own domain.
Models on hardware you own: what runs, what doesn't, and why — plus retrieval and guardrails.
Schemas that last, queries that answer real questions, and backups you have restored once.
Linux, containers, proxies and a deployment path that does not wake you at 3am.
Threat models, secrets, TLS and authorisation you can actually maintain.
Four collections for the moments between courses: standing a tool up, building something real, fixing something broken, and looking a word up. They are the same material, in the shape each job needs.
One tool, stood up correctly: numbered steps, a verification step, an uninstall.
A real build from blank folder to working system, every command shown.
A patch job: symptom, triage, cause, fix, and how to stop it recurring.
The reference layer: one definition, one distinction, one example with a number.
A maintained catalogue of open-source projects with licences and a 'reach for it when' line — the decision table the courses cite.
Every course is compiled from a research vault that is published here in full — the notes, the tables, the sources. If a course left you wanting the detail, it is one click away.
The research behind course 001: harnesses, tool use, context engineering, evaluation, production concerns.
Read the notesThe research behind course 002: requirements, architecture, trade studies, V&V, lifecycle standards.
Read the notesThe research behind course 003: architecture, patterns, testing, DevOps, security, performance.
Read the notesThe research behind course 004: packet flow, addressing, routing, services, security, labs and pedagogy.
Read the notesA forty-hour course gets bookmarked and never opened. The unit here is the thing you can do today: one skill, one build, one problem solved — with a deliberate cut list, so nothing is included just because it belongs to the subject.
Every item names where it breaks — the reasonable decision that causes the outage, the symptom it produces, and the check that would have caught it. That is the part most introductions skip, and the part you need at 11pm.
Released under CC BY 4.0. Use them, teach from them, adapt them for your team — attribution is the only condition. They are written for neighbours learning to run their own systems, not for a sales funnel.