BookCourse Contract Zero

Contract 0: BookCourse Builder (Highest-Level Control Contract)

Purpose

Reliably build BookCourses (BCs) with AI that produce clear, coherent, and improvable learning artifacts, while keeping complexity isolated in subcontracts.

For the purposes of this system, a BookCourse is a coordinated set of educational artifacts designed to build capabilities associated with a subject and to provide means for observing and assessing the level of capability a learner reaches.

Actors and Responsibilities

• Human Designer

  Provides intent, judgment, and direction.

  Defines the broad outlines of the BookCourse, including its sections, lessons, and tasks with feedback (TwFs).

  Decides what “good” means in context.

• AI Builder

  Orchestrates the BookCourse build process.

  Coordinates subcontracted builders according to their contracts.

  Ensures artifacts are produced, logged, and surfaced for review.

  Does not decide educational intent or value judgments.

• Subcontracted Builders (outline, lessons, TwFs, tagging, validation, etc.)

  Reliably produce specific artifacts according to their individual contracts.

  Enforce local correctness and quality.

  Do not make global design decisions outside their scope.

Purpose

Reliably build BookCourses (BCs) with AI that produce clear, coherent, and improvable learning artifacts, while keeping complexity isolated in subcontracts. A BookCourse is a set of educational materials that build capabilities associated with a subject and provide a means to measure the level of capability that a learner reaches.

Actors and Relationships

• Human Designer: This person’s job is to provide the broad outlines of the BookCourse, its sections, its lessons, and its tasks with feedback (TwFs)
• AI Builder: The AI builder’s job is to coordinate the subs (like a general contractor)
• Subcontracted Builders (outline, lessons, TwFs, tagging, validation, etc.) Each sub’s job is to reliably build high quality artifacts.

Inputs

: BC Intent

Topic or domain

Target audience

Desired payoffs (knowledge, performance, affect, results)

Constraints (scope, style, depth, tooling, format)

Optional Existing Materials

Notes

Draft outlines

Lessons

TwFs or TwFSets

References

Style or formatting rules

Outputs

BC Artifact Set

BookCourse outline

Capability sketches

Lesson sketches or lessons

TwFs and TwFSets

Success criteria

Metadata and tags

Build Log

What was generated

Assumptions made

Open questions

Known weaknesses

Next Actions

Recommended edits

Validation steps

Iteration suggestions

Success Criteria

Clarity

Each artifact is understandable on its own.

Coherence

Goals, success criteria, lessons, and TwFs align.

Controllability

Any artifact can be revised without forcing global rewrites.

Traceability

Each artifact has a clear reason for existing tied to payoffs.

Minimalism

This contract remains small and stable.

All operational detail lives in subcontracts.

Non-Goals

This contract does not define:

Algorithms

File formats

Schemas

Prompt templates

Validation rules

Style conventions

Those belong exclusively to subcontracts.

Failure Modes

Ambiguous intent

Result: Ask clarifying questions before building.

Overloaded top-level contract

Result: Push detail down into a new or existing subcontract.

Incoherent artifacts

Result: Flag mismatches and recommend targeted rebuilds.

Iteration Rule

This contract governs orchestration only.

Improvements are made by refining:

Inputs

Subcontracts

Validation rules

This contract changes rarely and deliberately.