A field manual

ULTIMATE
AI DIVE DEEP

For operators who want to stop juggling tabs and start running AI like an OS. Twenty-four chapters. One operator. Belkins, Folderly, the Newsletter, and a portfolio of others.

by Vlad Podoliako · Edition 3 · May 2026

3-10B tokens / mo · 5 companies · 36 chapters · 14 widgets · $0 to read
Read the prologue first → Day zero (operator path) The journey (reader path) Questions people ask me
Before
Ten tabs. Twenty minutes. No decisions yet.
gmail.comhubspot.comapp.slack.comnotion.socalendar.google.comsentry.iodashboard.stripe.comapp.ahrefs.comchat.openai.comlinear.app
After
One channel. One coffee. The week is closed.
#vlad-ops · 6:30 AM
1.HubSpot — 2 deals advanced overnight, 1 went dark
2.Folderly — deliverability holding 96%, no incidents
3.Mentee A — prep doc generated, three open threads
4.One investor on calendar at 2 PM, conflict resolved

Twenty-Four Chapters

Read straight or jump where you need it. Each chapter stands alone.

  1. 01 AI as an Operating System

    The Day I Killed My Tabs
  2. 02 The Five-Tool Stack

    Five Tools, Not Fifty
  3. 03 Why Claude Forgets You

    AI Is a Temp Agency, Not a Genius
  4. 04 Obsidian as Working Memory

    The Vault — Where AI Becomes Useful
  5. 05 What a Skill Is

    Recipes the Chef Reads Before Cooking
  6. 06 Parallel Subagents and Fan-Out

    The Swarm
  7. 07 Scheduled Tasks

    Make AI Work While You Sleep
  8. 08 Chat, Cowork, or Claude Code?

    Three Doors to Claude
  9. 09 Blast Radius and Key Hygiene

    Don't Get Owned
  10. 10 Hosted Agents, Local Models, Frontier

    The Wild Stuff
  11. 11 Build a Skill in 30 Minutes

    How to Build a Skill, End to End
  12. 12 Connectors and MCP

    Types, install paths, custom servers
  13. 13 Claude Code in 10 Minutes

    The 10-Minute Quickstart
  14. 14 Slash Commands and Settings

    The Cheat Sheet
  15. 15 When to Skip Permissions

    Permissions, Sandboxes, and Sharp Edges
  16. 16 Hooks and Custom Subagents

    From Autocomplete to Coworker
  17. 17 25 Operator Tips

    Hard-Won Wisdom from Hour 200
  18. 18 Headless Claude and CI

    claude --print in Production
  19. 19 Shipping a Product in a Saturday

    How to Build Products with AI
  20. 20 tmux, Worktrees, Named Sessions

    Running Six Claudes at Once
  21. 21 Which Mode Right Now?

    Interactive, Plan, Auto
  22. 22 Resume, Replay, Fork

    Session Management
  23. 23 A Saturday Build, Hour by Hour

    Vibe Coding, with the Misfires Kept In
  24. 24 The Tier List

    Every Tool Ranked Without Mercy
  25. 25 Evals — Smoke, Regression, Golden

    Evals or Hope, Pick One
  26. 26 How Do I Get My Team to Adopt?

    Getting Twelve People to Use This
  27. 27 Voice Agents — STT, LLM, TTS

    Phone Number to Production
  28. 28 Six Failures, Six Bills

    The Receipts I'd Rather Not Show You
  29. 29 Why Is My Bill So High?

    Token Math, Caching, Batch, Routing
  30. 30 When to Drop CC for the SDK

    Building with the Anthropic SDK Directly
  31. 31 Six Stages from Idea to Deploy

    Ideation, Foundation, Creation, Polishing, Security, Deploy
  32. 32 Agent Archetypes (Rick Platform)

    OpenClaw, NemoClaw, Hermes
  33. 33 Browser Agents with Playwright

    Login, Click, Scrape, Post
  34. 34 Persona Agents and the Four NEVERs

    Writing on Your Behalf Without Becoming a Bot
  35. 35 Codex or Claude Code — or Both?

    Day Shift, Night Shift
  36. 36 When Do I Outgrow Claude Code?

    Beyond CC — CrewAI, LangGraph, SDK
Resources

Vault library

CLAUDE.md skeletons, .mcp.json examples, hook scripts, SKILL templates, the five reusable prompts. Copy, paste, ship.
Reference

Cheat sheet

Slash commands, settings, env vars, file paths, keyboard shortcuts. Print it. Tape it next to your monitor.
Vocabulary

Glossary

Thirty terms you'll need. Linked inline throughout the book. Hover any underlined term to read it.
Stay close

Edition 3 lands when this list says it does.

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