Lesson 48 of 1570
Builder Capstone: Design an Agent for Your Life
No code. Just design. Pick a real task you do every week and draft a complete agent spec — goal, tools, loop, stop, approvals, and what success looks like.
Lesson map
What this lesson covers
Learning path
The main moves in order
- 1The exercise
- 2agent design
- 3specification
- 4capstone
Concept cluster
Terms to connect while reading
Section 1
The exercise
Pick a task you do every week that you'd rather not. Not coding. Something from your real life — sorting receipts, clipping news, replying to the same kind of email, filing school forms, checking prices on a thing you want to buy. Your job is to design (not build) an agent that could do it.
The spec template
Fill this in on paper, in a doc, or in a notes app. Short answers only.
# Agent Spec: [Name your agent]
## 1. Goal
In one sentence, what does success look like?
## 2. Trigger
What starts the agent? (A button, a schedule, an email, my voice?)
## 3. Inputs
What does the agent see to begin? (URL, file path, prompt, calendar.)
## 4. Tools needed
- [ ] Filesystem (which folders?)
- [ ] Browser (which sites?)
- [ ] Email (send, read, or both?)
- [ ] Calendar
- [ ] Shell / code
- [ ] MCP server (which?)
- [ ] Other
## 5. Steps (the loop)
Sketch the think/act/observe cycle for a typical run.
## 6. Stop condition
What makes the agent say 'done'? What makes it give up?
## 7. Approval gates
Which actions need a human yes before running?
## 8. Failure modes
What could go wrong? How would you notice?
## 9. Sandbox
Where will it run? What can it NOT touch?
## 10. Success metric
How will you measure if it's actually helping?A worked example
A real spec you could hand to a developer (or your future self).
# Agent Spec: Weekly Receipt Sorter
1. Goal: At the end of each week, every receipt email is saved as
a PDF in ~/Finance/2026/ and logged in a running CSV.
2. Trigger: Sunday 6pm, automatic.
3. Inputs: Gmail inbox. Label 'Receipts'.
4. Tools: Gmail MCP, Filesystem (write only to ~/Finance), Code
execution (for PDF generation + CSV updates).
5. Steps:
- Fetch new 'Receipts' emails since last run.
- For each: extract merchant, amount, date. Save as PDF.
- Append one row to receipts-2026.csv.
- Mark email as 'Processed'.
6. Stop: No more unprocessed receipt emails, OR 50 emails
processed (cap), OR an error on 3 consecutive emails.
7. Approvals: None for read/write inside ~/Finance.
Approval required if any email suggests fraud (flag amounts > $500).
8. Failure modes:
- Email without a parseable amount → skip + notify.
- Filesystem full → stop + notify.
- Gmail API throttle → back off, retry next run.
9. Sandbox: Runs in OpenClaw. Filesystem scope: ~/Finance only.
Network: Gmail API only.
10. Success metric: Weekly ritual of 'where did I put that receipt'
takes zero minutes instead of thirty.Common design mistakes
- Goal too vague ('manage my life') — break it down until each agent does one thing.
- No stop condition — always set a cap on steps, time, or cost.
- Too many tools — if your agent needs 10 tools, it's probably 3 agents.
- No failure plan — what if a tool is down? What if the input is weird?
- Skipping approvals on risky steps — speed is not worth surprise bills.
When you're ready to actually build — wire up tools, pick a framework, write code — head to the Creators track. You now have the design muscle to ship something safe and useful.
Key terms in this lesson
End-of-lesson quiz
Check what stuck
15 questions · Score saves to your progress.
Tutor
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