The Hands-on AI Playbook¶
Curated by James Gray
Built for leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and founders at the intersection of people, business, and technology. No technical background required — just a willingness to get hands-on with AI and start creating real impact.
Practical guides, patterns, ready-made tools, and direct answers to move you from experimenting with AI to getting results. Browse by topic, work through a structured course, or jump straight to the tools.
New here? Start here
Begin with the Business-First AI Framework — a seven-step method for applying AI to your work: Analyze, Deconstruct, Design, Build, Test, Run, Improve. Then explore Building Blocks, Use Cases, or Tools & Resources.
Use the playbook where you work — connect the MCP server to get instant answers inside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible tool.
Learn with James — explore Agentic AI for Leaders or Claude for Builders to go from curious to capable in weeks.
Latest Updates
Outcome-Driven Path and Process Optimization in Deconstruct
Deconstruct skill adds outcome-driven path for agent systems and optimize-for-AI step for step-decomposed workflows
Business-First AI Framework: 7-Step Restructure
The Business-First AI Framework expands from 3 steps to 7 — with new Test and Improve steps, renamed skills, evaluation criteria, and a skills-only approach replacing portable prompts.
CLI Building Block and Smarter Construct
CLI joins as the 11th agentic building block, and the Construct step now discovers creation tools automatically.
Data Readiness, 11 Building Blocks, and a Redesigned Build Phase
Data readiness probing, 11 building blocks, Design Prompt, and the Build phase split into three focused skills.
Stronger product specs, restructured coding page, and organizational workflows
Upgraded Vision Brief and Feature PRD skills with deeper PM rigor, restructured Agentic Coding page, and added organizational workflow lens
See what others have built with the playbook.
If something here saved you time, sparked an idea, or helped you move faster — I'd love to hear about it.
Share what you built Share on LinkedIn
See What People Built with the playbook.
About¶
I'm James Gray — read more about me and the story behind this playbook.
This is an open-source project. See Contributing Guidelines to add content or suggest improvements.