The workshop
Curriculum
Pick a project and build — one step at a time. Ground Zero and Off the Grid are free (no account). Membership unlocks Build Your Jarvis — one cumulative app, Modules 0–13.
Ground Zero
Free12 lessons · ~6 hUnderstand AI from scratch — what it is, how we got here, the 2026 landscape, and why it matters for your work.
What AI is
- 01→
What AI actually is
Plain-English LLM basics and your first real conversation — no account required if you use Gertrude on this site.
~11 min · 8 steps
- 02→
The day everything changed
November 2022 — why ChatGPT spread faster than Siri or Alexa, and why every big tech company pivoted hard.
~7 min · 6 steps
- 03→
The wild early years
Jailbreaks, bad headlines, privacy scares — and why frontier AI got stricter. Honest history, not myth.
~10 min · 8 steps
- 04→
AI in 2026
Multimodal apps, agentic AI, and how search is changing — the current picture before Ground Zero's product map.
~12 min · 9 steps
- 05→
The workforce reality
Desk jobs, cited labour data, companies training AI on your work, and robots on factory floors — urgent honesty, not hype.
~13 min · 10 steps
- 06→
Your path forward
Ground zero to builder — what free Ground Zero and Off the Grid give you, what ongoing membership adds beyond Jarvis, and your next step into Module 1, the 2026 landscape.
~7 min · 7 steps
The 2026 landscape
- 07→
The 2026 AI landscape
What frontier AI platforms actually offer beyond chat — and what you're renting vs what you'll build on your own machine.
~50 min · 10 steps
- 08→
Privacy before you paste
Practical red lines before you use cloud AI hands-on — what happens to your data and habits that keep you out of trouble.
~30 min · 7 steps
- 09→
Meet the platforms (hands-on)
Hands-on tours of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and optionally Grok — find research, images, thinking modes, and search in the UI, not just the chat box.
~55 min · 9 steps
- 10→
The comparison lab
Run the same Example Ink prompts on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — log your personal winner for each task and optional image generation where your tier allows.
~60 min · 9 steps
- 11→
Your personal AI toolkit
Turn your comparison lab into a "which AI when" card, audit what you're paying for, and frame what you'll build instead of renting — before the full path in Lesson 12.
~40 min · 6 steps
- 12→
What you'll build next
Close free Ground Zero — Jarvis in plain English, proof from Liam's real projects, and the full build path (free Off the Grid, then Jarvis Build Your Jarvis). Off the Grid handoff and waitlist appear after the quiz.
~45 min · 7 steps
Off the Grid
Free4 lessons · ~3 hRun real AI on your own PC — install Ollama, pull a model, chat offline. AI you own, no subscription.
- 01→
Why local AI matters
Before you install anything — why open-weight on your machine is a different category from rented cloud AI, and how to pick a starter model sized for your RAM.
~35 min · 6 steps
- 02→
Install Ollama
Install Ollama from the official site and confirm the background service is running — ready to pull your starter model in the next lesson.
~45 min · 6 steps
- 03→
Your first local chat
Pull your RAM-sized starter model, run the Example Ink prompt in terminal, and prove what's on disk with ollama list.
~50 min · 7 steps
- 04→
Free path complete
Prove offline inference, celebrate the free tier win, and see what Build Your Jarvis · Module 0 membership builds — before the paywall.
~40 min · 6 steps
Build Your Jarvis
Membership17 lessons · ~18 hBuild your own Jarvis-style assistant — one cumulative app that grows module by module: memory, tools, voice, integrations.
Module 0 — Foundations
- 01→
Your AI toolchain
Install VS Code, Git, and the Continue extension — then wire your Off the Grid Ollama model into the editor for local AI chat while you work.
~55 min · 10 steps
- 02→
Cloud open-weight models
OpenRouter, pay-as-you-go cloud access to open-weight models — add one to Continue beside your local Ollama model and compare cost vs ChatGPT Plus honestly.
~60 min · 10 steps
- 03→
The anatomy of a good prompt
RCTFC — Role, Context, Task, Format, Constraints. Turn vague asks into prompts that work on your local model and cloud open-weight, and save a reusable template.
~50 min · 11 steps
- 04→
Prompting for different tasks
Five hands-on labs — writing, analysis, coding, creative, and structured JSON — each with a full RCTFC prompt saved in your gerty-prompts folder.
~75 min · 10 steps
- 05→
System prompts and personality
Write a system prompt for your own assistant voice, wire it into Continue, and see the same question answered with and without personality — plus an honest peek at how public Gertrude works.
~50 min · 10 steps
- 06→
Cheap vs frontier and your prompt library
Jarvis foundations capstone — run the same capstone prompt on local, cloud open-weight, and frontier models; score when upgrade is worth it; organise your gerty-prompts library and git init for local saves.
~70 min · 10 steps
Module 1 — Models & memory
- 07→
The 2026 open-weight landscape
Build Your Jarvis · Module 1 opens the build path — pick workhorse and specialist local models by job, pull an embedding model for memory, and wire them in Continue for the Jarvis repo ahead.
~50 min · 9 steps
- 08→
Modelfiles — bake your voice in
Turn your Lesson 5 system prompt into a custom Ollama tag — Plan mode proposes the Modelfile, workhorse Agent writes it, frontier reviews, then you A/B test against the raw model.
~60 min · 10 steps
- 09→
Your docs, your answers (RAG explained)
Plain-English RAG — retrieve from your files, then answer. Scaffold my-jarvis/, create a fictional doc pack, migrate your personality, and prepare for the local RAG build in Lesson 10.
~55 min · 10 steps
- 10→
Build local RAG
Plan and build core/rag/ with workhorse Agent — ingest your doc pack with Ollama embeddings, query with citations, frontier security review, and a checkpoint question only your files can answer.
~75 min · 10 steps
- 11→
Memory capstone — model + docs
Build Your Jarvis · Module 1 capstone — same policy question on raw local, Modelfile, and RAG; honest scorecard; git snapshot; Build Your Jarvis · Module 2 desktop app preview.
~65 min · 10 steps
Module 2 — Chat shell
- 12→
Why a desktop app beats a browser tab
Build Your Jarvis · Module 2 opens Module 2 — why Jarvis lives on your taskbar, Tauri in plain English, case-study patterns (not pixels), boundary vs public Gertrude, and your outcome brief for the scaffold lesson.
~45 min · 10 steps
- 13→
Scaffold your Jarvis app
First Tauri build — Plan from your 5.1 outcome brief, workhorse Agent scaffolds my-jarvis/app/, frontier reviews permissions and secrets, then you run the dev command and see your window.
~75 min · 9 steps
- 14→
Chat UI — messages that work
Build functional chat in your Tauri app — send, receive, session history, streaming — wired to local Ollama only; Make it yours on behaviour and optional feel; model switcher lands in 5.4.
~70 min · 9 steps
- 15→
Wire local + OpenRouter
Add an in-app model switcher — local Ollama, cloud open-weight, and frontier on OpenRouter; paste API key in .env via editor only; frontier reviews secrets; test routing in your window.
~70 min · 9 steps
- 16→
Load personality from the repo
Wire core/personality/ into your desktop chat — system voice on local and cloud tiers; optional Modelfile tag for local; test on-brand replies and refusals in the app.
~65 min · 9 steps
- 17→
Icon, shortcut, first ship
Build Your Jarvis · Module 2 finale — your icon in assets/, Agent wires Tauri icons and OS shortcut, launch from taskbar, git snapshot, Module 2 complete; Build Your Jarvis · Module 3 preview.
~70 min · 9 steps
Coming next — the rest of the build
- M3Files & images — Upload docs/images; RAG in app; vision models
- M4Thinking & reasoning — Extended thinking model routing
- M5Web search — Search tool, citations
- M6Agent core — Tool loop, planning, approvals
- M7PC tools & browsing — Sandboxed FS/shell, browsing
- M8Voice (PAYG) — STT/TTS via PAYG pipeline
- M9Wake word — Always-on trigger, kill switch
- M10Telegram — Bot integration
- M11Email — Gmail/API pattern
- M12Calendar — Guarded read/write
- M13Jarvis complete — Security pass, polish, roadmap
Authoring next · one repo that grows every module
Membership opens soon — Build Your Jarvis and every project after.