AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#111

Post by keeganpoppen » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #79

hibikir wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 tests was already better than the traditional Spanish university class: 1 exam. which is probably written by the department head, not your teacher, and he isn't in any way interested in a high pass rate. Failing 90% of the class might even be positive for them. At that point classes aren't even important: You purchase the tests from the last 10 years, and then you have a prayer of knowing what the bar might be this…

I tested out of all but the last required Spanish class so I probably skipped over some early stuff and avoided the deeper stuff. But at that level I remember we'd do oral exams with the TA 1 on 1 maybe 15 mins in the hallway. I forget the logistics of it all now. I remember making presentations and class participation in spanish being important. I can't remember how the written exams went.

suuper high-value comment

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#112

Post by mswphd » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

aaaronic wrote: post #105

wrs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a general rule with LLMs, don't just tell it to do something if you actually need to make sure it gets done. Use a hook script to make it do that, or use the history that's already there (transcripts of all sessions are retained in ~/.claude, for example). There are innumerable scripts out there to parse these, or your agent will whip one up for you in 5 minutes.

I was hoping to get them access to a specific tool like GitHub Copilot via GitHub Education, but when I looked, sign-ups were paused, so I went the tool-agnostic approach. Even during installation a lot of them were telling me how "chat" told them to fix their installation issues (but some were clearly using an alternative to ChatGPT, specifically). However, I see from other comments on this post that I may need to i…

worth clarifying "chat" is actually (linguistically) completely separate from a shorthand for ChatGPT. Livestreamers (e.g. on twitch/youtube) often talk to "chat", the people watching. Visually, they're just narrating actions etc to a 3rd party who is not present.

This has leaked into (some) younger people's vocabulary. A particular example is saying "Chat is this real?"

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chat-is-this-real

but some people use it more freely.

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#113

Post by aaaronic » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

mswphd wrote: post #112

aaaronic wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping to get them access to a specific tool like GitHub Copilot via GitHub Education, but when I looked, sign-ups were paused, so I went the tool-agnostic approach. Even during installation a lot of them were telling me how "chat" told them to fix their installation issues (but some were clearly using an alternative to ChatGPT, specifically). However, I see from other comments on this post that I may need to i…

worth clarifying "chat" is actually (linguistically) completely separate from a shorthand for ChatGPT. Livestreamers (e.g. on twitch/youtube) often talk to "chat", the people watching. Visually, they're just narrating actions etc to a 3rd party who is not present. This has leaked into (some) younger people's vocabulary. A particular example is saying "Chat is this real?" https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chat-is-this-re…

Ha, I have a 16 year old who yells "chat" often enough when online gaming to be familiar with that use.

I'm positive these students did use an LLM to get the help instead of crowdsourcing, but it is an interesting linguistic overlap.

And while I'm on my "old man" soapbox -- "look it up" and "search for it" somehow became "search it up" with the young people. I corrected my son for years before I started hearing college students also saying it that way...

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#114

Post by charlie90 » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

>Don't: Run bash commands

This seems unreasonable to me. One of the best uses of AI is that you can just tell your computer what to do in natural language and it does it. Running bash commands isn't part of the education, its busy work.

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#115

Post by ohrus » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:55 PM UTC

charlie90 wrote: post #114

>Don't: Run bash commands This seems unreasonable to me. One of the best uses of AI is that you can just tell your computer what to do in natural language and it does it. Running bash commands isn't part of the education, its busy work.

Why wouldn't it be a part of the education?

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#116

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

aaaronic wrote: post #60

I'm trying something similar this semester with my course via AGENTS.md. I think this one is overly verbose and probably falls out of context windows pretty quickly, based on my experience (for me, a very terse but clear set of 30 lines performed better than providing examples and more nuanced explanations during my testing with a few models). I have included the basic "I am a student -- help me learn, don't just do…

[deleted]

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#117

Post by asdff » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

keeganpoppen wrote: post #111

asdff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tested out of all but the last required Spanish class so I probably skipped over some early stuff and avoided the deeper stuff. But at that level I remember we'd do oral exams with the TA 1 on 1 maybe 15 mins in the hallway. I forget the logistics of it all now. I remember making presentations and class participation in spanish being important. I can't remember how the written exams went.

suuper high-value comment

Sorry, no refunds.

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#118

Post by FistfulOfHaws » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 11:19 PM UTC

aaaronic wrote: post #60

I'm trying something similar this semester with my course via AGENTS.md. I think this one is overly verbose and probably falls out of context windows pretty quickly, based on my experience (for me, a very terse but clear set of 30 lines performed better than providing examples and more nuanced explanations during my testing with a few models). I have included the basic "I am a student -- help me learn, don't just do…

I’ve done something similar for myself to learn Django. Claude Code has a built in Learning Mode, I extended that with a Coaching Mode. Where it is instructed on how to coach me, how to help stub out features, how to give feedback in code review, etc. With the main instruction being never to write code for me when in that mode. It can write basic logic examples/pseudo code and discuss different approaches to the problem. I have found it to be really effective, it is my go to for learning new things. I’m using it now to learn Elixir.

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#119

Post by FistfulOfHaws » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 11:26 PM UTC

bcherny wrote: post #83

For those using Claude Code, I recommend Learning mode to instruct Claude to walk you through implementing the solution yourself rather than doing it for you. It’s very helpful when diving into a new domain, and helps build lower level intuition. To enable it, run /config > output styles > Learning

Learning mode has been a huge help for me, it quickly became my favorite way to learn. I ended up created a “Coaching Mode” output style that took some of the learning concepts like stubbing todos for the users and added other intructions that better fit how I learn

Re: AI Agent Guidelines for CS336 at Stanford

#120

Post by recursivecaveat » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #71

As an employer, I want AI to be fully allowed for assignments, and the assignments to be made trickier to compensate. Let's train people to use all the tools available to solve the hardest problems, rather than solving toy problems with a slide rule.

I don't think you will achieve much that way. Suppose you pair me with a plumber, an area I know almost nothing about. The plumber is not able to finish anything 'trickier' because they have an ignoramus looking over their shoulder. Maybe I can learn some things by watching, having things explained to me as they work. On the other hand if I just walk away there's no way to tell from the final product. You gotta learn the fundamentals to at least a comparable level to be able to contribute. Same reason you couldn't just google everything on your phone in calculus.