Lesson 11From Words to Actions
Welcome to Module 7: Agents & Workflows — where everything stops being about what the model knows and starts being about what it can do. This module runs across two lessons: today, the control surface — prompting as a systematized craft, system prompts, and the tool-calling mechanism that turns text generation into action, culminating in the agent loop itself. Next lesson: the architecture patterns built on top (workflows, multi-agent systems, browser agents).
One promise for today: by the end, agents will be demystified. The word gets treated like sorcery; you'll see it's a while-loop you could write in twenty lines — with all the difficulty living in places this course has already trained you for.
In this lesson
- 54Prompt Engineeringthe craft, systematizedYou've been prompting for ten lessons; now let's make it an engineering discipline. Start with why prompting works at all, because the…4 min
- 55System Promptsthe product's constitutionEvery technique above, made persistent. The system prompt is the privileged message that precedes every conversation — and thanks to Topic…3 min
- 56Function Callingthe mechanismHere is the bridge between everything so far (text in, text out) and everything agents do — and it rests on one demystification that must…3 min
- 57Tool Callingthe practiceThe mechanism is a solved problem; the craft is where systems succeed or fail. Four disciplines: 1. Tool design. The rules the field…4 min
- 58AI Agentsthe loop, demystifiedEverything converges here, and the demystification is total: An agent is a while-loop around tool calling. Model thinks, picks an action,…5 min
Start with Topic 54: Prompt Engineering, or browse all 90 topics.