The Field Guide

Exercises you do in your own terminal, on your own files.

Every Field Guide entry points at work you do on your own machine, with your own files. No simulator, no sandbox, no enrollment, no browser-based "try it" surface.

The book tells you what to do. The Field Guide tells you how. One short page of exercises per chapter, with clear success criteria so you know when you're done. Free for any reader of Builder-Leader.

01

Two Groups Speaking Past Each Other

Four short sections that tell you which side of the build gap you are on, and the specific first action to cross it.

Self-audit
15 min
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02

What You See From the Other Side

Train three new listening channels: the three-tier listen, the three-failure-mode recognition, and the near-Group-3 identification.

Three listens
25 min
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03

Why Your Org Can't Cross Institutionally

Your pilot-to-production ratio, the myth your org most deeply believes, and one specific decision that would run differently with a senior person who has personally crossed.

Org assessment
30 min
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04

The Harness and What's In It

Six-component inventory of what you already have, a walk through your SaaS stack through the harness-eats-SaaS lens, and a named first addition for week one.

Inventory + plan
30 min
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05

The Builder Inside

Five-primitive self-audit mapping your leadership practice to the harness, plus a re-description of one recent decision in builder-practice language.

Self-audit
25 min
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06

Start With Claude Code (weeks 1-2)

Install, bootstrap from slopless, rewrite something you wrote, write your first skill, write your first guardrail.

Five exercises
~1 hour
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07

Building Your Personal Harness (weeks 2-6)

Notice-what-you-do-twice, two-file memory without overengineering, spawn one agent, and ship one real piece of work through the harness.

Four exercises
4 weeks
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08

From One Operator to a Team (weeks 6-10)

The second-operator onboard, a three-failure-modes written agreement, and a platform-or-keep-going decision at the end of week ten.

Three exercises
4 weeks
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09

Leading From the Other Side (month 3+)

Three-shifts description from three people who know you, archetype audit across the 2D matrix, and the Pascal-type recognition question.

Three checkpoints
~1 hour, revisit quarterly
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Not a course

There is no enrollment, no login, no progress tracking, no certificate. Everything on this site is free to read. Every exercise happens in tools you already have or install in five minutes. If the work tells you something, that is the signal. If it does not, close the page and come back when it might.