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Lesson 66: Small steps
Level 8, Meet Your AI Coding Agent. One small change, test it, save it, then the next. The new word: small steps. It follows lesson 65, Give it context. Next comes lesson 67, Practice: boss the agent.
What the lesson explains
Small steps. One small change, test it, then the next.
One step at a time. A small change is easy to read, test and undo. one small change; test it; save with git.
What you do first
Too big!. The pretend agent says: "I centred the footer, and while I was there I rebuilt your whole page." It asks to change index.html. The right answer is Deny (Far too big! Ask for one small step at a time.).
The files on the practice computer
This lesson works in one folder. At the start, Documents\my-site holds images\, .gitignore, done.txt, footer.txt, ideas.txt, index.html, keys.env, secrets.txt, style.css, todo.txt.
Along the way you save style.css in Documents\my-site. Lesson 67 opens with the files just as you leave them.
What you practise
Fix it, "Too big!": The pretend agent says: "I centred the footer, and while I was there I rebuilt your whole page." It asks to change index.html. The right answer is Deny (Far too big! Ask for one small step at a time.).
Try it, "One small step": The pretend agent says: "Just one line: the footer in the middle. May I change style.css?" It asks to change style.css. The right answer is Allow: it does what you asked, and nothing more.
In your head, "What comes next?": The agent finished one step. What do you do next? The answer: "Test it, then save it with git".
What PlayBuddy and PlayType say
PlayType: "Big jobs go wrong in big ways. Ask for one small step."
PlayBuddy: "After each step, test it. Then ask for the next one."
Help in every lesson
Everything happens on a pretend computer in your browser, so nothing touches your real files. PlayBuddy and PlayType stand beside the board, cheer you on and say when it is your turn.
A green ring shows where to click the first time. After that you do it on your own, and if you slip twice the ring comes back.
Stars
The lesson has 3 things to do. Up to one slip in ten gives three stars, up to one in four gives two, and finishing always gives at least one. Stars and progress are saved in this browser only; there is no account.
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