The DEEP Build Kit · Card 18
Where This Goes Next
The skills ladder beyond the masterclass, from describing a tool to directing a coding agent, and where the line sits.
For: Everyone, especially Level 3 ■
Card 18 · All stages · 5 minutes
The skills ladder is about you: what you can do. It is not the complexity ladder on card 01, which is about what the tool does, and its steps (Step 0 to Step 5) are not the three levels of the day. Today, everyone reaches Step 0, Describe, and Step 1, Share, once they share their tool. Anyone who publishes on GitHub Pages (card 17), usually Level 3 ■ Black, reaches Step 2, Own. Level 3 also starts on Step 3, Direct, by directing a coding agent in a folder. Each step adds one thing you can do, and one new thing to check.
The skills ladder
| Step | Name | You can… |
|---|---|---|
| Step 0 | Describe | Write a brief and get a working tool from an AI tool, one that opens in a browser. |
| Step 1 | Share | Share it as a link or file that a colleague opens on a phone. |
| Step 2 | Own | Create a GitHub repository in the browser, upload the file, switch on Pages, update it with a commit, and say exactly what is public. |
| Step 3 | Direct | Connect a coding agent (such as Claude Code or Codex) to the repository, write it a task, read the change it proposes, accept it or roll it back, and keep an instructions file. |
| Step 4 | Maintain | Run a multi-page tool with a test pack, an issues list and versions, with colleagues contributing and access and phone checks done. |
| Step 5 | Connect | Keys kept on a server, databases, logins or student data. Only with school IT and data-protection sign-off. This is where risk rises sharply, and it is not taught here. |
Where Think fits. Think (AI inside the tool) is the top rung of the complexity ladder. What students type would go to an AI service, so it needs Step 5's sign-off, and the data protection and age limits on card 08. It is beyond this session.
Four words for the next step
Card 16 has the words from today, including repository, commit and publish.
- Public and private: who can see the files and history, and who can see the site. They are not the same thing: a Pages site can be public while its repository is private.
- Environment: where the code runs: your laptop, the cloud, the live site. The draft and the live copy should never be the same thing.
- API key (secret): a password that spends money or opens data. It never goes in any page or repository, or any file you share or upload.
- Branch and pull request: the agent's proposed change, which you review before it goes live. A colleague's tracked changes.
The habits that carry up
- Your spec becomes the agent's instructions file: CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, AGENTS.md for Codex.
- Your success checks and test pack become the checks every change must pass before it goes live.
- Every agent step ends: "Explain what you changed and how I'd check it."
- You read the change before it goes live. The skill at Step 3 and Step 4 is checking, not writing code.
"Specification and verification. That was the human job, and the project lived or died on it."
Alex Gray, I Gave ChatGPT a Week to Build My App
Your next step
- Log today as CPD in DEEP Track: capture learning in one click and turn rough notes into evidence for appraisal. track.deepeducationnetwork.com
- School leaders: the DEEP AI Literacy Audit. Where your school stands against the OECD and European Commission AI literacy framework. Free, about fifteen minutes. audit.deepeducationnetwork.com
- Both tools are looking for beta testers. Sign up on the attendee page: deepeducationnetwork.com/courses/build-with-ai/masterclass
- Work with Alex: AI integration, curriculum design and teacher professional development, for schools and organisations. education@deepprofessional.com
The Build with AI course is in development: deepeducationnetwork.com/courses/build-with-ai will show the first cohort when it opens.
DEEP Education Network · Build with AI · Two rules: no student names or data anywhere; nothing student-facing calls AI.