The Ideabro Forum

64
Careers Pinned
Hiring and looking: the monthly thread (November)
One thread a month for everyone hiring or looking, so the rest of Careers stays for discussion. Format, please: Start with HIRING or LOOKING Role, location or…
Lucía Romeroactive 2d ago 5
5replies1.3K views
212
General Pinned
Welcome to the Ideabro Forum: start here (and read the house rules)
Hello, and welcome. This forum is where Ideabro readers trade ideas, prompts, builds and honest questions. The magazine is the front of the house; this is the…
Maya OkaforStaff · Editoractive 1w ago 6
6replies4.8K views
38
Help Desk Solved
My coding agent keeps saying 'done' when it isn't. How do you catch this?
Six months into my first dev job. I use a coding agent for chores like renaming things, updating imports and writing boilerplate tests. Twice this week it…
Sam Okonkwo-Haleactive 21h ago 4
4replies980 views
73
Agents & Automation
What permission levels do you give your agents? Sharing my four-tier setup
I red-team my own automations for a living, so naturally I've over-engineered my personal ones. Here's the tier system I use for every agent, at home and at…
Viktor Novakactive 2d ago 6
6replies1.5K views
33
Careers
Teaching my first 'AI for small business' night class. What would you include?
I teach at a community college in Ohio, mostly bookkeeping and intro to business. Starting in January I'm running an eight-week evening class called "AI for…
Jamal Riversactive 2d ago 5
5replies540 views
47
Show & Tell
I built a staff rota planner for my bakery in one evening. Please roast it.
Six staff, two shops, opening at 6 a.m. Every Sunday night I used to spend an hour with a pencil. Last week I tried this instead: A shared sheet with each…
Ruth Abernathyactive 3d ago 5
5replies612 views
31
Prompt Craft Solved
Summaries keep dropping the one number that matters
I summarise weekly operations reports for a hospital network. No patient data, just things like bed occupancy, discharge times and staffing gaps. The reports…
Arjun Pillaiactive 4d ago 4
4replies744 views
44
Help Desk Solved
Long PDF + model = it ignores the middle chapters. Workarounds?
I'm reading a 180-page thesis from another lab, closely related to mine. I uploaded the whole PDF to an assistant with a long context window and asked it to…
Nandini Iyeractive 4d ago 4
4replies1.3K views
29
Agents & Automation
Running agents on a small local model: worth it yet?
I'm making a small detective game and I want an agent that tests dialogue trees: it walks through conversations, flags dead ends and checks that clues appear…
Yusuf Demiractive 5d ago 4
4replies690 views
59
Show & Tell
Volunteer scheduling for a food bank with three prompts and a shared sheet (template inside)
We have about 70 volunteers, four shifts a day and a lot of last-minute cancellations. I was spending most of Friday on scheduling. Now it takes about 40…
Daniel Okoroactive 6d ago 5
5replies1.4K views
42
General
How are you wording AI disclosure in client work?
Freelance copywriter here. I use AI for research summaries and for terrible first drafts that I then rewrite. Nearly everything a client sees is mine, but not…
Sofia Brennanactive 1w ago 5
5replies890 views
91
General
What's one task you handed to AI and then took back?
At the library help table, people mostly ask what AI can do. I'm more interested in the opposite. Which jobs did you try handing over, then quietly take back…
Grace Whitfieldactive 1w ago 7
7replies2.2K views
36
Prompt Craft Solved
Your best 'make it shorter' prompt that doesn't flatten the voice?
I script woodworking videos. My first drafts run long, and when I ask an assistant to cut them, it cuts the wrong things: the joke about my dog stealing…
Oliver Grantactive 1w ago 4
4replies802 views
58
Careers
Junior dev here: how do I show I'm good when AI writes half the code?
Second-year student, starting internship applications. Every project I've built in the last year was written with a coding assistant. I understand all of it…
Tomás Echeverríaactive 1w ago 5
5replies1.6K views
40
Help Desk Solved
How do I explain token pricing to a boss who thinks it's per question?
Our team built an internal assistant that answers questions about our policy documents. The bill came in at three times my boss's estimate, and he's convinced…
Elif Yıldızactive 2w ago 4
4replies1.2K views
66
Show & Tell
My Year 11s built a 30-question benchmark for 'explain it like a lab partner'
After reading Build Your Own Benchmark I turned it into a two-week class project. My students wrote 30 real questions they'd ask a lab partner: why the…
Hannah Lindqvistactive 3w ago 5
5replies1.1K views