Use this page as the big-picture map for the collection. It shows what to learn first, what forms the common foundation, and which paths to choose only when they match your current work.
If you are ready to begin, use the opening workflow to make one working-log entry, then add its other practices when they support a current decision. If you have an immediate problem, enter the relevant path below and use its prerequisite links when you need an earlier concept.
The complete roadmap
Start here
- Build the Right Mental Model establishes the practices used throughout the collection. You create a working log, define requirements, control complexity, assign ownership, and make changes that can be reversed.
Build the common foundation
- Plain Text as a Durable Foundation helps you choose formats that remain readable, portable, and reusable.
- Files, Organization, and Recovery produces an understandable file structure and a tested approach to recovery.
- Terminal and CLI Foundations teaches you to inspect commands, understand their results, and repeat work safely.
These paths provide the strongest shared foundation. Complete them in order when you want a systematic introduction. Otherwise, use the one that supports your current task.
Choose the paths that match your work
-
Personal Knowledge Management is for choosing and maintaining a note system without duplicating information.
-
Programming Environment and Git is for coursework or projects that require a development environment, version control, and a reproducible programming loop.
-
Responsible AI-Assisted Learning is for using AI while preserving your reasoning, verification, and course responsibilities.
-
From AI Conversation to Reusable Workflow is for turning a useful AI-assisted method into a verified note, checklist, script, repository instruction, or agent skill. An agent skill is a reusable instruction package that helps an AI agent apply a multi-step method; it is not the same as a human skill or a deterministic script.
-
Projects, Debugging, and Professional Habits is for structuring larger work, defining completion, testing assumptions, diagnosing failures, and presenting evidence.
-
From Course Materials to a Working System is for turning one course’s source material into a clear workspace, dashboard, and reviewed reminder flow.
-
Semester Setup and Course Mapping is for checking course access, files, tools, and recovery evidence before a term begins.
These paths are selected by need. You do not have to complete all of them.
Apply the foundation on your computer
The Platform Implementation collection contains operating-system-specific work. Its Windows path covers accounts, security, PowerShell, software management, setup, backup, and recovery. Use a platform path alongside the general foundations; it does not replace them.
How to prioritize
- New to the collection: begin with one working-log entry, then add opening and common-foundation practices as your work requires them.
- Solving an immediate problem: enter the closest learning path and follow prerequisite links as needed.
- Using AI for coursework: prioritize Responsible AI-Assisted Learning before reusable AI workflows. When a permitted structured record is intimidating to complete, use the guided-template workflow as a bounded example: the chatbot may collect and organize supplied answers, but the student reviews, verifies, and saves the durable record outside chat.
- Beginning a programming course: prioritize files, terminal concepts, Programming Environment and Git, then project and debugging habits.
- Setting up or rebuilding a computer: combine the relevant platform path with files, recovery, and terminal foundations.
The numbered path cards below show the recommended default order and the number of guides in each path.
Looking for a worksheet you have used before? The Templates library lists each reusable Markdown file with its owning guide and minimum useful first pass.