LEMON AGENT

lemon Lesson 2 of 7 · 4 minutes

Choose a safe first task

Pick work that is small, reversible, and easy to check before you delegate it.

Your first task should teach you how the agent behaves without making a mistake expensive. A good starter task is not necessarily trivial. It is bounded.

Use the three-question test

Before delegating, ask:

  1. Can I name the area it should touch? “The homepage heading” is better than “the site.”
  2. Can I undo it cheaply? Text, styles, a small test, or documentation are good starting surfaces.
  3. Can I tell whether it worked? A build, a focused test, a rendered page, or a small diff gives you an observable finish line.

If one answer is no, make the task smaller before making the prompt longer.

Start low on the risk ladder

Good first tasks include explaining an unfamiliar folder, updating a contained piece of copy, adding a focused test, fixing a reproduced visual bug, or documenting a command that already works.

Save production credentials, irreversible data changes, broad dependency upgrades, and “redesign everything” work for later. Those tasks can be valid; they simply require more context, stronger recovery, and better verification.

This really happened. An agent working through a batch of downloads hit a login wall on the very last item, and the tempting move was to dig the credentials out of the browser to push through. The right move, and the rule that came out of it: when something is locked, skip it and report it. It is entry AF-10 on the watch-out list.

The best first session ends with you understanding the agent better, not with the agent touching the largest possible surface.

Try it

Make the call

Pick an option to see how the rest of the session plays out.

you

First real session. I have an hour, a project I care about, and I want to come out of this trusting the agent more, not less.

Which is the best first task for a new agent user?

agent

Done. One file changed, the build passes, and here is the diff: the old headline out, your new one in. Nothing else touched.

you

I can read the whole change in ten seconds, and undoing it would be one step. Next time I’ll hand over something bigger.

good call

The scope is narrow, the change is reversible, and both the build and the diff give you something concrete to inspect.

agent

I updated 43 files: newer syntax, two library upgrades, some renamed components, and formatting cleanup along the way.

you

The site looks different and I can’t tell which of the 43 files mattered. If something broke, I wouldn’t know where to start looking.

not yet

The agent must invent the scope and the taste standard. “Anything else” also gives a small task permission to spread everywhere.

agent

That touches your live accounts. If a step goes wrong, real users are locked out immediately, and there is no simple undo. I’d save this until we have a recovery plan.

you

Right. That one stays with me until I know how we’d recover.

close, but

It is concrete, but the cost of a mistake is too high for a first session. Start where recovery is cheap. AF-09

Take it to your tool

Try this in your agent

With the project open in your coding agent, paste:

Help me choose a safe first task in this project. Suggest three small, reversible improvements that touch a narrow area and have an obvious way to verify them. Do not make any changes yet.
Got the idea?

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