The Agentic Developer's Playbook
From first prompt to production agent teams — master agentic software engineering with Claude Code, Codex CLI, and beyond.
What This Book Is
This is a structured, practice-first curriculum for developers who want to go beyond basic AI coding tool usage and master agentic software engineering — the discipline of building software with AI agents as collaborators, not just autocomplete.
You will learn:
- Mental models — how to think about AI agents as development partners
- Progressive skills — from your first session to orchestrating agent teams
- Cross-tool patterns — principles that work in Claude Code, Codex CLI, and future tools
- Battle-tested workflows — patterns rated by maturity from real practitioner experience
Who This Is For
| You are... | Start here |
|---|---|
| New to AI coding CLIs | What Is Agentic Development? |
| Using Claude Code / Codex CLI at a basic level | Project Memory |
| Comfortable but want advanced patterns | Sub-Agents |
| Looking for a specific pattern | Workflow Patterns |
| Debugging an agent issue | Troubleshooting |
| Wanting to see what NOT to do | Anti-Patterns |
How to Read This Book
Three ways to use this resource:
1. Book Mode (sequential)
Read the curriculum from Foundation through Advanced. Each module builds on the previous. This is the best approach if you're learning these tools for the first time or want to fill gaps systematically.
2. Reference Mode (random access)
Jump directly to the Reference section for specific lookups — patterns, anti-patterns, cheatsheets, configs, prompts, and troubleshooting guides. Best for developers who already use these tools and need a specific answer.
3. Project Mode (hands-on)
Go straight to the Practice section and learn by building. The CLI Todo App project walks you through agent-assisted development from scratch. Case studies show how real workflows come together.
Time Estimates
| Tier | Modules | Estimated Time |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | What Is Agentic Dev, First Hour, Project Memory, Prompting | ~3 hours |
| Intermediate | Hooks & Commands, Sub-Agents, MCP Servers, Session Architecture | ~4 hours |
| Advanced | Agent Teams, Headless/CI, Orchestration, Team Adoption | ~5 hours |
| Reference | Browse as needed | — |
| Practice | CLI Todo App + Case Studies | ~3 hours |
Suggested Learning Paths
The Weekend Sprint — Modules 00-03 (~3 hours) Get from zero to productive. You'll understand the mental model, have a working setup, master project memory, and know how to prompt effectively.
The Practitioner Path — Modules 00-07 (~7 hours) Everything in the Weekend Sprint plus hooks, sub-agents, MCP servers, and session architecture. You'll be an intermediate-to-advanced practitioner.
The Full Journey — All modules (~12 hours) Foundation through Advanced, plus reference browsing and the practice project. You'll understand the full landscape of agentic software engineering.
Each Module Contains
Every curriculum module has four parts:
- Concepts — tool-agnostic principles and mental models (~15-20 min read)
- Claude Code — implementation specifics for Claude Code (~15-20 min)
- Codex CLI — implementation specifics for Codex CLI (~15-20 min)
- Exercises — hands-on practice on your own projects (~20-30 min)
You can read just the Concepts page for the principles, or dive into the tool-specific pages for hands-on implementation.
Pattern Maturity Levels
Content in this book is rated by how well-tested it is:
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Experimental | Tried by 1-2 people, promising but unvalidated |
| Proven | Used successfully by multiple practitioners |
| Battle-Tested | Validated in production by teams, edge cases documented |
Contributing
This is an open-source project. See the Contributing appendix for how to improve this book, add patterns, or share your own case studies.