Setup & Tooling

Your tools shape your thinking. Set them up once, set them up right.

Version control is not optional. Every experiment, every model, every lesson you build here gets tracked.

Training on CPU is fine for learning. Training for real needs a GPU.

Every AI API works the same way: send a request, get a response. The details change, the pattern doesn't.

Notebooks are the lab bench of AI engineering. You prototype here, then move what works into production.

Dependency hell is real. Virtual environments are the cure.

Containers make "works on my machine" a thing of the past.

Your editor is your co-pilot. Configure it once so it stays out of your way and starts pulling its weight.

Data is the fuel. How you manage it determines how fast you go.

The terminal is where AI engineers live. Get comfortable here.

Most AI runs on Linux. You need to know enough to not be stuck.

The worst AI bugs don't crash. They train silently on garbage and report a beautiful loss curve.