Start here: pick your path through agentic engineering

AI Developer Toolkit teaches developers, tech leads, CTOs, and executives to build software with coding agents (Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex) while keeping quality provable. The site has two entry points: a quick start for each tool, ending in a first real task, and four role tracks, each opening with a free scorecard that sets a baseline.

You have three agents to evaluate, several hundred pages, and a real job to get back to. This page gets you to the right first page.

Jump to your tool

Cursor quick start Install, set up project rules, and ship a first feature in the editor

Claude Code quick start Install, authenticate, and run a first project from the terminal

Codex quick start Set up the app, the CLI, and the IDE extension, then run a first task

Then pick the next page by where you are coming from:

If you are…	Read next
New to agents	Quick wins
Coming from GitHub Copilot	Copilot compared with the three agents
Adding a second tool	Cursor vs Claude Code or Codex vs the others
Already fluent in one tool	Power-user tips, then the Cookbook
A platform or DevOps engineer	CI/CD with Claude Code, Codex automation, and MCP servers

Which reading path fits your role?

Each track is an ordered list of pages with an exit criterion per step. Take the scorecard first (about eight minutes): your answers show which steps to skip.

Developer

You want agents to ship work you can trust. The track runs from a first real task to reviewing evidence instead of every diff.

Developer Scorecard · Developer track

Tech lead

You need one workflow for the whole team and a review queue that is not the bottleneck: a shared harness, verification design, and review capacity.

Tech Lead Scorecard · Tech lead track

CTO or VP Engineering

You decide the operating model, the guardrails, the vendors, and how to prove any of it works. Ten decisions, each ending in an artifact with an owner.

C-Level Scorecard · CTO track

Executive

You need the effect on cost, speed, risk, and headcount, with a source on every number, and the decisions leadership owns.

C-Level Scorecard (shared with CTOs) · Executive track

Where do you sit on the autonomy ladder?

The site is organized around one map: Dan Shapiro’s autonomy ladder, Level 0 to Level 5, published 23 January 2026. At Level 3 you review every diff; at Level 4 you write the specification and check the evidence; at Level 5 a pipeline ships while you run the factory. Shapiro puts 90% of self-described “AI-native” developers at Level 2 and says almost everyone tops out at Level 3. The useful next page is the one that moves you up one rung.

The Autonomy Ladder The six levels, and how to place each of your loops on one

What to do in your first hour

Take your role’s scorecard and keep the result as your baseline.
Finish your tool’s quick start on a real repository, not a toy project.
Run the two prompts below in that repository: the first gives the agent its context, the second shows which checks stand between it and a bad merge.
Commit the instructions file, and put the missing check from prompt 2 on your backlog.

Analyze this repository and draft the instructions file the coding agent reads at the start of
every session (CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, AGENTS.md for Codex, project rules for Cursor; use
whichever this repo already has). Include:
1) the architecture in five lines, 2) the exact build, test, and lint commands,
3) coding conventions with one real example each, 4) the known gotchas,
5) what "done" means: the checks a change must pass before it is reported as finished.
Keep it under 150 lines. Show me the draft before writing the file.

Do not modify any files. Report how a change to this repository is verified today:
1) the exact commands for tests, type checks, lint, and build, and whether each passes on this branch now;
2) which of them CI runs, naming the workflow file;
3) what no automated check covers (for example UI behaviour, migrations, or performance).
End with the single missing check that would most reduce how much code a human has to read
before merging, written as a task with acceptance criteria.

A faster agent without automated checks only moves work into review; evidence, not diffs explains what a reviewer checks instead of every line.

Where everything lives

The sidebar is ordered by use; every group but Start here starts collapsed.

Section	What it holds	Start at
Start here	This page, the four tracks, quick wins, and why it matters	Why agentic engineering
Autonomy Ladder	Each level and the human’s job at it	The ladder
Cursor · Claude Code · Codex	One tree per tool, cut by task; the same task in another tool is a one-segment URL swap	Cursor · Claude Code · Codex
Workflows & method	The tool-independent lifecycle and cross-tool workflows	Method · Workflows
Ecosystem & comparisons	Choosing a tool, models, MCP servers, skills, and frameworks	Ecosystem · Comparison
Cookbook	Prompts by language, framework, and stack	Cookbook
Lead a team	Rollout, the shared harness, review, and people	Lead a team
Engineering organization	Operating model, controls, security, measurement, and spend	Engineering organization
Strategy & business	Economics and evidence for executives	Strategy
Reference & help	Commands, configuration, glossary, and troubleshooting	Reference · Help

Why readers stall, and how to get moving again

Learning three tools at once. Nothing sticks. Finish one quick start, and add a second tool only for work the first does badly.
Reading without doing. Nothing changes. Run each prompt on your real repository the day you read it, and keep what works in the instructions file.
No instructions file. The agent repeats the same mistakes every session. Run the first prompt above and commit the result.
No verification gate. Review becomes the bottleneck, or bugs reach production. Run the second prompt, add the missing check it names, and re-take your scorecard after four weeks to see which answers moved.