Teaching it your world | Master AI Automation in 4 hours Master AI Automation in 4 hours Course About Ayush Modules Sample chapter Toolbox The Microcap Minute Classroom / Module 10: Build Your Own Assistant / Chapter 3 Teaching it your world Watch first, then read. Same lesson, your pace. What you will learn – Writing instructions the model actually follows – Knowledge curation beats knowledge volume – The four guardrails every personal assistant needs Instructions that stick Models follow constitutions better than sermons. What works: Behavioural, not aspirational: “Never give the final answer to a practice question on first ask” beats “be a good teacher” Numbered and testable: each rule is checkable by an auditor (Module 7) later Prioritised: “If rules conflict, exam accuracy wins over brevity” resolves future dilemmas in advance Short enough to re-read: ~300 words; bloat dilutes attention (Module 1’s desk) Re-read your assistant’s instructions monthly like a founder re-reads their pitch, prune rules reality proved unnecessary. Knowledge: curator, not hoarder Uploading everything feels thorough and performs terribly: relevance drops, costs rise, answers waffle. Curate: One canonical source per topic , your cleaned notes beat four overlapping PDFs Name for the machine , syllabus-2026-science.pdf , not scan_0043.pdf Kill stale files quarterly , last year’s syllabus actively poisons answers Prefer text over scans , OCR’d (Module 9 Chapter 2) documents ground far better Four guardrails, minimum Before any assistant touches real work: Scope refusal , politely declines off-domain asks (tested, Chapter 2) Uncertainty honesty , standing instruction: “If unsure or unsupported by files, say so, never guess” Privacy floor , “Never request or repeat personal data beyond what’s in my files” (full treatment Module 11) Change log behaviour , anything it drafts/edits comes back with what-changed bullets (Module 7’s contract habit) Try it yourself Audit Chapter 2’s assistant against this chapter: rewrite its instructions as numbered testable rules ≤300 words with priorities; curate its file shelf (delete one thing it doesn’t need); confirm all four guardrails are written down. Then run the auditor prompt from Module 7 over its own instructions (“list violations of these principles”), let AI grade your constitution. Save v2 in learn/assistant-instructions-v2.md . Key takeaways – Behavioural + numbered + prioritised + short = instructions that hold. – Curated canonical files outperform dumped archives. – Scope refusal, honesty-about-doubt, privacy floor, change logs: the minimum four. Download the exercise sheet (PDF) Module workbook (PDF) ← Prev: No-code first Next: Coding agents for civilians → Classroom / Module 10: Build Your Own Assistant / Chapter 3 Teaching it your world What you will learn – Writing instructions the model actually follows – Knowledge curation beats knowledge volume – The four guardrails every personal assistant needs Instructions that stick Models follow constitutions better than sermons. What works: Behavioural, not aspirational: “Never give the final answer to a practice question on first ask” beats “be a good teacher” Numbered and testable: each rule is checkable by an auditor (Module 7) later Prioritised: “If rules conflict, exam accuracy wins over brevity” resolves future dilemmas in advance Short enough to re-read: ~300 words; bloat dilutes attention (Module 1’s desk) Re-read your assistant’s instructions monthly like a founder re-reads their pitch, prune rules reality proved unnecessary. Knowledge: curator, not hoarder Uploading everything feels thorough and performs terribly: relevance drops, costs rise, answers waffle. Curate: One canonical source per topic , your cleaned notes beat four overlapping PDFs Name for the machine , syllabus-2026-science.pdf , not scan_0043.pdf Kill stale files quarterly , last year’s syllabus actively poisons answers Prefer text over scans , OCR’d (Module 9 Chapter 2) documents gro
Teaching it your world
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