The Tack
Roomwhere the work actually happens
The building where the gear hangs ready, the workbench is, and the horse can finally be put to work. Today we go inside and fit it out.
By the end of today you will have the editor installed, you will know the three parts of the screen worth looking at, and the black panel will have stopped being frightening.
Presented by Emile du Toit
brainitconsulting.com
Last session made the argument. Today we act on it.
- The chat window has a ceiling. It cannot see your files, nothing persists, and you are the one carrying everything back and forth.
- A file is a thing with a name and contents. A folder is a box holding files.
- One folder, one job. Draw a line round the work, and that line is the boundary everything else depends on.
You were asked to make one folder with something real in it. If you did, open it now. If you didn't, make one in the next two minutes — any folder, any two files.
Contents
- Before you startThe first workshop that installs anything. One free download.
- The tack roomWhat an editor actually is.
- Three things you'll actually look atIgnore the rest of the screen.
- Talking to the stableThe terminal, gently.
- What can go wrong in hereAlmost nothing. And the one thing that can.
- Before the next sessionTwenty minutes at your own kitchen table.
Then the questions this always raises, the glossary so far, and the picture to photograph.
Before you start
- Workshops #001 to #003 done. In particular the folder you made in #003 — today you open it properly.
- Your own computer, and permission to install software on it. This is the first workshop that installs anything.
- About 40 minutes. The install is five of them; the rest is looking around and getting comfortable.
- One real file from your business to drop in. A price list, a standard reply, anything you would not mind an assistant reading.
One free download from Microsoft, and nothing else. If the install goes sideways, the setup page has every step for both Windows and Mac, plus what to do when it will not start.
The tack room
A window onto that folder. Not a place where you type code.
The thing everyone installs at this point is called a code editor, and the name puts people off before they have seen it. Nearly all of them use one called VS Code. Free, made by Microsoft, and despite the name you are not going to be writing code in it.
What it actually is: a single window that shows you one folder, everything in it, and gives the assistant somewhere to stand. That is why it is the tack room. It is not where the work is done — the horse does the work. It is where you can see all the gear at once, reach any of it, and watch what is being taken off the wall.
You could do all of this without ever opening it. People do. But then you are trusting the assistant's account of what it did, instead of looking. Opening the tack room means you can see the shelf it just changed.
You will not be typing code. You will be typing sentences, in English, in a panel — the same as you typed into the chat window last session. The difference is that the sentences now land in a room where the horse can reach the gear.
Lab 1 — Build the room 15 min
One download, then you open the folder you already made in #003. Nothing else gets installed today.
Windows
- Go to code.visualstudio.com. The big blue button already knows which machine you are on.
- Run the file it downloads and accept the agreement.
- On the screen with tick boxes, tick Add “Open with Code” to the Windows Explorer context menu and Add to PATH. Both save you trouble later.
- Next, Next, Install. Launch it, and close the Welcome tab.
On a Mac
- Same site, same button. The download is a disk image, a file ending in .dmg.
- Open it, then drag Visual Studio Code into your Applications folder and open it from there.
- macOS asks whether you are sure, because you downloaded it. Click Open.
- There are no tick boxes on a Mac. Nothing to configure.
Everywhere these workshops say Ctrl, you press Cmd.
Now open your folder
- File → Open Folder.
- Choose the folder you made in #003 — the one with
inbox,referenceandfinishedin it. - VS Code opens it in Restricted Mode, with a banner across the top, because it does not know who wrote these files. You are the author. Click Manage in the banner, then Trust. Until you do, the terminal and the assistant stay switched off.
The title bar now shows your folder's name. That is the whole point of the exercise: everything from here happens inside those four walls, and nothing outside them is in reach.
Three things you'll actually look at
The screen has about forty things on it. You need three, and a fourth you'll barely touch.
The first time you open it, the window looks busy in a way that makes people close it again. Almost all of it is for professional programmers and you can ignore it permanently. Here are the three regions that matter, and what each one is for.
Number three is where the work gets asked for, and it should look familiar — it is the same back-and-forth you had in a browser last session, moved into the room with your files. That dark strip along the bottom is the part that frightens people, so it gets its own chapter.
Lab 2 — Find the three regions, and make something 10 min
Forty things on screen, three that matter. Point at each one before you go further.
Point at them
- The file list, on the left. Your folders from #003 should be there. Click one open.
- The big pane in the middle. Empty until you open a file. Click a file in the list and watch it fill.
- The dark strip along the bottom. If you cannot see it: Terminal → New Terminal, or Ctrl +
`(the key above Tab).
Make a file, by hand, once
You will rarely do this again — the assistant makes files for you from #005 — but doing it once removes the mystery.
- Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on a Mac), or File → New Text File. If your File menu only offers New File…, that opens a list — choose New Untitled Text File from it.
- Type a couple of lines. Anything. Your name and today's date will do.
- Ctrl + S (Cmd + S on a Mac). Save it into your folder as
notes.txt. - Look at the file list on the left. There it is. Look in File Explorer or Finder. There it is too.
That is the entire trick: the editor is a window onto a folder that already existed. It is not a place where files live.
And put your real file in
Drag a copy of something from your own business into the reference folder — a price list, a standard reply. Copy it, do not move it. Nothing in this series ever deletes your originals.
Talking to the stable
The black box with the blinking cursor. It's a doorway, not a test.
The dark panel along the bottom is called the terminal, and it has an unearned reputation. If you have ever seen a film where somebody types furiously into a black screen, this is that, and it is nothing like that.
Notice what happened in the walkthrough you read in #003: the entire job was done in the assistant panel on the right, and the black one was never touched. That is normal. You could work this way for months. So it is worth being straight about what the terminal is actually for, rather than leaving it as the scary part of the screen.
It is a place where you type an instruction and press enter. That is all it is. Where the panel on the right talks to the horse, the terminal talks to the stable itself — the computer, directly, without any buttons in the way. Installing things, checking things, starting things: that is its job, and it is a job you will need perhaps once a month.
Worth getting straight, because we use all three. The stable is your computer — the whole building. The tack room is one room inside it: the folder you are working in, with your gear in it. The horse lives in neither. It lives down the road at the company that built it, and comes when you call.
That last part is the one worth remembering. Nothing you own is inside the model, which is why the folder you choose is the boundary that matters.
These are the ones I use in front of you, and they are a fair sample of what the terminal is for — asking the computer about the software you have, rather than doing the work itself.
claude --version — tells you which version of the assistant you have. Useful when something behaves oddly, or when instructions you read online assume a newer one.
claude update — checks whether there is a newer version and installs it if there is. If you are already current it says so and does nothing.
Those two are a fair sample of what the terminal is for. You are not commanding the machine to do your work; you are asking after its health.
Why that pair, out of everything? Because this software changes every week or two, and almost every "it worked yesterday and not today" turns out to be a version behind. Knowing how to check and how to update is most of keeping the thing healthy, and it takes ten seconds.
Two things that help enormously and nobody mentions. It cannot read your mind, so it will complain about a typo rather than guess — that is not you failing, that is it being careful. And you can paste into it, so nobody is expecting you to type long things accurately.
You are not being tested by the black box. You are opening a door and calling the horse in.
Lab 3 — Open the black box once 10 min
The terminal has an unearned reputation and the cure is to type two harmless things into it and watch nothing bad happen.
Open it
Terminal → New Terminal. It opens already inside your folder, which is the useful part — you are talking to the computer from where your work is.
Ask it where you are
Windows or Mac, the same word:
It prints the path of the folder you are in. You have now run a command, and the sky did not fall.
Ask it what is here
Windows:
Mac:
It lists the same files you can see on the left. Two views of one folder — that is all the terminal is.
Now get one wrong on purpose
It says it does not recognise that and waits. That is all that happens when you mistype: it declines and sits there. It does not guess, and it does not break anything.
Two things nobody mentions
- You can paste into it. Ctrl + V, or right-click. Nobody types long commands accurately and nobody expects you to.
- The up arrow brings back the last thing you typed, so a typo is one keypress from fixed.
Chapter three mentions claude --version and claude update. Those are the right pair to know — but they only work once the assistant is installed, which is #005. Come back and try them then.
What can go wrong in here
Much less than you fear. And one thing worth respecting.
People move slowly at this point because it feels like a room where you could break something expensive. Mostly you cannot. A folder is a folder. Opening one, looking in it, closing it again is about as dangerous as opening a filing cabinet.
Things that are not the risk
- Typing the wrong thing in the terminal. Almost always it just says it doesn't understand and waits.
- Clicking the wrong part of the editor. The worst case is a panel you didn't want, which closes.
- Looking at a file. Looking changes nothing.
- Not understanding most of the screen. Nobody understands most of that screen.
The one that is
The assistant can change and delete files, inside the folder you opened it in. That is what it is for — and it is also the only genuine hazard in this room. If it edits your rate card and gets it wrong, the old rate card is gone, in the same way it would be gone if you overwrote it yourself.
There is a proper answer to this, and we get to it in session seven: a way of keeping every previous version of everything, forever, so any mistake becomes a matter of stepping back rather than starting again. Until then, the boring version below works fine.
- Work on copies. Copy the rate card into the project folder. Leave the original where it lives.
- Never open an assistant in your whole Documents folder. One job, one folder. That is what last session was for.
- Read what it says before you say yes. It tells you what it is about to change. That sentence is not decoration.
- Nothing irreplaceable, not yet. Not the only copy of anything.
Before the next session
Twenty minutes at your own table, at your own pace.
From the next workshop on, you are working in this room rather than reading about it. That goes well if the room is already built and badly if you are installing things while trying to follow along. So build it now — it is genuinely twenty minutes, and the lab below walks every step.
- Install VS Code. Search for "VS Code download", take the one from Microsoft, and accept every default it offers you.
- Make a folder called
tack-roomsomewhere you can find it again. Your desktop is a perfectly good place. - Open that folder in VS Code. File, then Open Folder, then pick it. The window will look empty, because it is.
- Find the three regions from chapter two. Files on the left, the big pane, and the dark strip along the bottom. If you can point at all three, you are ready.
- Put one real file in it. Drag in a copy of something from your own business — a price list, a standard reply, anything you would not mind an assistant reading.
- Stop there. That is all you need to do. Do not install anything else, and do not go looking for the assistant yet.
Here is what your folder should look like by the end of today. If yours does not match, that is the thing to fix before #005.
Nothing of your own to put in inbox/ and reference/? Dale’s six files are in #003, chapter one, each with a copy button. Copy them in and carry on.
There is also a public folder online with a saved point at the end of each workshop, if you would rather see the whole thing at once. It is at github.com/brainit-consulting/ai-workshops — pick end-of-004 from the dropdown, then the green Code button and Download ZIP. Nobody is counting who uses it.
Lab 4 — Leave the room ready 5 min
Five things, then close the laptop. From the next workshop on you work in this room rather than read about it, and it goes badly if you are still building it.
- VS Code installed and it opens.
- Your folder open in it — the title bar shows its name.
- You can point at all three regions without hunting: file list, big pane, dark strip.
- At least one real file from your business sitting in
reference. - Nothing else installed. Resist it. The assistant arrives in #005 and installing it early only gives you two things to debug at once.
If any of the five is missing, that is the thing to fix before moving on — not something to catch up on later. Everything after this stands on it.
Questions people actually ask
The ones that come up once the software is on the screen.
I already tried this and closed it because it looked terrifying.
Everybody does. The screen is built for somebody else.
That first screen is designed for professional programmers and shows you everything it can do, which is the opposite of helpful. Chapter two is the antidote: three regions, ignore the rest. Open it again with that page next to you and it shrinks to a manageable size.
Mac or Windows?
Both stables have the same gear in them.
Either. Everything in this session works on both, and the buttons are in slightly different places, which is the only complication. If you have a choice, bring whichever machine you actually use for the business — the point is to end up with your real work in the room.
What does this cost?
The tack room is free. The horse still eats.
VS Code is free. The folder is free. The assistant that works in it is the same subscription we talked about last time, around $20 a month, and it still eats sugar cubes by the token. Nothing in today's homework costs anything at all.
Plain words
Everything the series has named so far. Today's are marked.
This list grows every session and always shows the lot, so you never need last week's notes to read this week's.
- Large language model (LLM) 001
- The engine that predicts the next word. The horse.
- GPT 001
- Generative — it makes new text rather than looking up a stored answer. Pre-trained — all its learning happened in advance. Transformer — the design of the machinery underneath. A breed name, not a job title.
- Knowledge cutoff 001
- The date its training stopped. It knows nothing after it, and doesn't know that it doesn't. The last day the horse was out in the world.
- Prompt 001
- What you type. A pull on the reins.
- Chatbot 001
- A model you can talk to, turn by turn. Horse plus bridle.
- System prompt / instructions 001
- Standing orders sent with every message, whether you type them or not. The saddle.
- Context window 001
- How much of the conversation it can hold at once. How far it can see on this ride.
- Token 001
- A chunk of a word — how length is counted, and how you're billed. Sugar cubes.
- Hallucination 001
- Making something up and sounding certain. Shying at a shed snakeskin.
- Tool 002
- A specific action it's allowed to take in the real world. A saddlebag.
- MCP 002
- An agreed standard for plugging tools into a model. Standard-size buckles.
- Agent 002
- A model given a goal, tools, and permission to keep going. A working horse, not a show pony.
- Agentic loop 002
- Look, decide, act, check, repeat. The ride itself.
- Human in the loop 002
- A person approves before something real happens. A hand on the reins.
- Automation 002
- The same work happening without you starting it each time. The horse knows the route.
- File 003
- A thing with a name and contents. A single piece of gear.
- Folder (directory) 003
- A box holding files, and sometimes other folders. A shelf.
- Project 003
- One folder holding one job's worth of everything. The room, with the door shut.
- Path 003
- The written address of a file — which boxes it sits inside. Directions to the shelf.
- Editor (VS Code) 004
- A window showing you one folder and everything in it. The tack room.
- Terminal 004
- A panel where you type an instruction to the computer directly. Talking to the stable itself.
- Install 004
- Putting a program on your own machine, once. Building the room.
Everything on one page
Photograph this before you go.
1 · One folder, one job
From last session. The line round the work.
2 · The tack room
Files left, work in the middle, where you talk to it beside.
3 · The terminal
A door, not a test. Two commands and you are done.
4 · The working horse
It comes into the room and starts opening gates.
And you still hold the reins. The room does not make the horse smarter — it just means you stop being the one carrying buckets.
#005 — The Horse That Opens Gates
You have the room. Next time the horse walks into it and starts picking things up — reading your files, writing new ones, running things. The important half of that session is what it does before every single change: it stops at the gate and waits for you.
Before you start it: finish the twenty-minute setup above. Next session assumes the editor opens.
I do this for a living, and love to help people.
Thirty-plus years in enterprise software and a computer science degree — which mostly means I have watched a great many horses bolt, and I can usually tell you which ones are worth saddling before you spend money on the saddle.
In person
Your team, your room, your actual work on the whiteboard instead of somebody else's examples.
Over video
The same session, at your desks, with fewer chairs to stack afterwards.
Built for real
When the idea survives the workshop and somebody has to go and build the thing — that part I do too.
Fun fact — I rode to school on horseback as a kid in South Africa. So the metaphor isn't borrowed. I've done the falling off in person.
Emile du Toit brainitconsulting.com
Workshop #004 · Inside the Tack Room
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