Free short course
Agents, tools and controlled automation
Explore tool contracts, MCP, prompt injection, retries and approval boundaries.
This course is free in full: every module, knowledge check and the final task, with no sign-up.
Explore tool contracts, MCP, prompt injection, retries and approval boundaries.
Complete Instruction design; understand inputs and outputs in a workflow. Each lesson includes a worked example, a practice task and an answer explanation. Allow about 12 minutes per lesson, five minutes for the knowledge check and 30 minutes for the final assignment. The reading is concise; the study time includes doing the exercises.
All scenarios are fictional. No paid subscription, specialist hardware or live AI integration is required to complete the written exercises. Advanced courses teach design and evaluation principles; they do not claim to provide a production implementation or professional accreditation.
By the end, you'll be able to…
- Design an agent workflow that can fail safely and explain its actions.
- Identify when a fixed sequence is sufficient.
- Explain what a connected tool may do before calling it.
- Keep external text from acquiring instruction authority.
- Handle an uncertain write without blindly repeating it.
- Make an automated action reviewable and recoverable.
What's in it
- Module 1: Agents, tools and controlled automation in practice
Design an agent workflow that can fail safely and explain its actions.
- Finishing the course
One final task that puts the whole method to work on something real.