Practice labs
Pick the lab for your role and complete it with the starter pack. Each lab takes about fifteen minutes.
You can pick the lab that fits your job and say how every lab works.
You can pick the lab for your role and follow the same routine in every lab: brief, plan, act, check.
You can choose the lab that matches your work and apply one repeatable loop to it: brief, plan, act, then verify against an answer key.
Pick one lab
A lab is a real task. You do it with Codex and the starter pack.
Pick the lab that is closest to your job. Do only that one. It takes about 15 minutes.
The two extra labs are short. Do them if you have time left.
Each lab is a small version of work you already do. You give Codex the starter pack files, and it produces files you can open and check.
Pick the lab for your role and do that one. Each takes about 15 minutes and counts toward the 60 minutes of the course.
Labs 08D and 08E are extras for any role. They take about 10 minutes each and do not count toward the 60 minutes.
Each lab is a bounded task with fixed inputs and a known correct output. That makes the result checkable, which most real work is not.
Choose the lab that matches your role. It counts toward the 60 core minutes. Labs 08D and 08E are optional and cover two common requests: a slide deck and a local web server.
Every number in an answer key was set when the starter pack was built. A mismatch is a defect in the output, not in the key.
| Lab | For | Time | You will make |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08A Business analyst | Business analysts | 15 min | A process diagram in BPMN (a standard process chart format) and a classified list of data fields |
| 08B Asset manager | Renewable-energy asset managers | 15 min | A variance report (actual output against budget) and a list of PPA (power purchase agreement) key dates |
| 08C Procurement | Procurement specialists | 15 min | A scored supplier comparison and an invoice exception report |
| 08D Presentation (extra) | Anyone | 10 min | A six-slide deck with speaker notes |
| 08E Docker (extra) | Anyone | 10 min | A web page served from a container (a sealed program box) on your laptop |
How every lab works
Open the CodexWork folder in Codex. Set the mode to Ask for approval.
Copy the brief into Codex. Codex first writes a plan. Read the plan. Then tell Codex to go ahead.
At the end, compare the result with the answer key on the page. The key tells you if the work is right.
Open the CodexWork folder as your project folder in Codex and set the permission mode to Ask for approval.
Each lab gives you a brief with six parts. Send it, read the plan Codex writes, correct it if needed, then approve. Your brief asks Codex to write only in the outputs folder and to leave the source files unchanged.
Each lab ends with an answer key built from the starter pack. Compare your results with it before you trust them.
Open CodexWork as the project folder with Ask for approval. Network access is off by default, so Codex must ask before it installs a package or downloads anything. Decline an install you did not expect and ask for a route that needs no extra packages.
Each brief states goal, inputs, output, constraints, done-when and how to check. Run it plan first, then act. The brief tells Codex to treat the source files as read-only and to write only under outputs.
The answer key is your oracle. Treat a matching result as evidence and a mismatch as a reason to ask Codex for its working, not as a reason to edit the key.
Check yourself
Which mode do you set before you start any lab?
Ask for approval. Codex then asks you before it does each action.
Ask for approval. Codex then asks before it changes a file or runs a command that needs your yes.
Ask for approval. It keeps a human decision in front of each file change or command, and it is the recommended start in the Codex docs.
OtterBlock is not affiliated with OpenAI. Codex and ChatGPT are OpenAI products.