Quickstart — Course Overview

Course: Quickstart
Program: Brainforge AI L&D Program Q2 2026
Audience: All team members (required)
Owner: Brylle Girang
Status: Active
Time: ~2–2.5 hours total across 5 modules (self-paced over ~2 weeks)
Format: Async-first, self-paced
Related: Notion — Brainforge AI L&D Program Q2 2026

Next course: After Quickstart, continue with AI Accelerator in The Forge (Linear MCP, Automations, Cloud Agents, skill-building, and advanced agents). The older Applied Task module remains archived in the vault as a disabled reference.

What this course is

The Quickstart course is the required baseline for every Brainforge team member. It establishes the what first (connect Cursor and GitHub to the repo), then the why (our standards expect AI integration), then the how (prompting, skills, modes, MCPs, troubleshooting, GitHub conventions, and navigating the monorepo). It stops at fluent daily use of Cursor + The Forge — deeper orchestration lives in AI Accelerator.

Course learning outcomes

By the end of the Quickstart course, every team member will be able to:

Explain how each of the 6 Brainforge Delivery Standards is served by a specific AI workflow — and identify one habit they will adopt.
Use Cursor to write context-aware prompts, trigger skills from the library, run agents, and choose modes appropriately for the task.
Use GitHub following Brainforge conventions — branching, commit messages, and PRs with four-section descriptions linked to Linear when applicable.
Navigate the brainforge-platform repo (knowledge/, standards/, .cursor/skills/) to find and save information relevant to their role.
Apply troubleshooting loops when tool calls or agent output misfire — without defaulting to manual rework.

Module sequence

Module 1: Cursor + GitHub Setup         (~20 min, async)
      ↓
Module 2: Delivery Standards × AI       (~55 min, async)
      ↓
Module 3: Cursor Deep Dive              (~70 min, async)
      ↓
Module 4: GitHub for Brainforge         (~35 min, async)
      ↓
Module 5: The Forge                     (~40 min, async)

Linear MCP, Cursor Automations, Cloud Agents, skill-building, and advanced skill/agent patterns are covered in AI Accelerator.

Module	Folder	Time	Format
Module 1 — Cursor + GitHub Setup	01-cursor-github-setup	~20 min	Async self-paced
Module 2 — Delivery Standards × AI	02-delivery-standards	~55 min	Async self-paced
Module 3 — Cursor Deep Dive	03-cursor-deep-dive	~70 min	Async self-paced
Module 4 — GitHub for Brainforge	04-github-for-brainforge	~35 min	Async self-paced
Module 5 — The Forge	05-the-forge	~40 min	Async self-paced

Visual progression

flowchart TD
    M1[Module 1: Cursor + GitHub Setup] --> M2[Module 2: Delivery Standards × AI]
    M2 --> M3[Module 3: Cursor Deep Dive]
    M3 --> M4[Module 4: GitHub for Brainforge]
    M4 --> M5[Module 5: The Forge]
    M5 --> ACC[AI Accelerator — optional next course]
    style ACC stroke-dasharray: 5 5

Delivery calendar (April 2026)

Date	Milestone
Mon Mar 31	Course released — Modules 1–3 available
Wed Apr 2	Module 5 — The Forge (async); recommended before deeper repo navigation
Thu Apr 3	Modules 4–5 open for self-paced completion

(Specific AI Accelerator milestones are tracked separately in program comms.)

How to complete the course

Work through Modules 1–5 in order. Each module builds on the previous one.
Use #ai-learning when something blocks you for more than ~30 minutes on the same step.
After Module 5, move to AI Accelerator when you are ready for orchestration depth (Linear MCP through advanced agents).

How the platform keeps you up to date

The Brainforge platform ships updates regularly — new Cursor skills, updated rules, Forge features, and workflow changes. The Doordash workflow packages merged changes into digests and posts so you do not have to hunt PR-by-PR.

See the Doordash workflow for the full system design.

Questions

Slack: #ai-learning | DM: Brylle Girang

Brainforge Knowledge

Explorer

README