Automate Basics

AID-300 · Certification

AI Agents & Delegation

Give AI a job, boundaries, tools and a stopping point

Move from asking for one answer to delegating a bounded piece of work. Plan the job, control what the agent can reach, review its evidence, and know when to stop it.

The certificate attests that you can delegate bounded multi-step work to an AI agent, control its access, and verify the evidence before any consequential action. You review the plan and the evidence before the work can create a real-world consequence.

Rahul Arora

Founder, Automate Basics

Start AID-300 free
Level
AdvancedBuilds on an earlier course
Lessons
15Plus 3 live applications
Content
5hRead at your own pace
Certificate
$129 onceLessons and exam are free

What you’ll be working on

  • Agents
  • Delegation
  • Deep research
  • Tool access
  • Approvals
  • Evaluation

Freeto read, all of it

The lessons, the live applications and the assessment cost nothing. Only the certificate is paid — $129 once, and only once you have passed.

Start AID-300 freeRead the syllabus

What this course includes

  • 15 lessons · 5h
  • 3 live applications on your own work
  • The assessment, free to take and to retake
  • A verifiable certificate when you pass
  • No subscription — this site does not have one

Evidence you finish with

  • A delegation contract and operational plan for a real multi-step task
  • A ten-case evaluation set including edge cases, known failures and a safe refusal
  • A run record, access register and revised agent specification

Every certificate carries an ID anyone can check without an account. How verification works

Who this is for

  • You already use AI for documents, research or analysis and want it to carry a task further
  • You have tried an agent or deep-research mode and found the result impressive but difficult to trust
  • You need a safe way to give AI access to files, browsing or business tools
  • You want to know where an agent ends and an automation begins

Recommended after AIW-200 AI at Work. Nothing is locked, so if you already have the skills, start here.

What you'll be able to do

These are the competencies the assessment tests. Nothing else is claimed.

  • Choose correctly between a normal chat, a reusable assistant, an agent and an automation
  • Write a delegation brief with a goal, evidence standard, boundaries and a clear definition of done
  • Break a multi-step job into a plan with approval points before any irreversible action
  • Limit tool and data access to the minimum needed for one job
  • Evaluate an agent run from its evidence and decision trail rather than from how polished the answer sounds
  • Design a human handoff for uncertainty, failure and high-consequence decisions
  • Turn a successful agent task into a repeatable specification for AI Automation

What you receive

Pass the assessment and the certificate is yours for $129, once. It carries your name, the competencies above, and an ID anyone can check.

  • Verifiable by anyone, with no account and no login
  • A permanent public page for the credential ID
  • Yours as a PDF, to attach or to print
  • No renewal, no expiry, no annual fee
How verification works

Automate Basics

Certificate of Competency

AID-300

This certifies that

Your name

has passed the final assessment of the AI Agents & Delegation certification.

The holder declares the course’s lessons and live applications complete; the assessment result above is machine-marked by the issuer.

Assessed competencies are published with this credential at automatebasics.com/verify

Credential ID

AID-300-2026-·······

Verify at automatebasics.com/verify

The curriculum

Every module, every lesson and every duration, before you decide. The lessons, the live applications and the assessment are all free. Only the certificate is paid, and only once you have passed.

Modules
4
Lessons
15
Live applications
3
Total time
about 5h
  1. 1

    What an agent is — and is not

    Choose the smallest form of AI that can do the job, and keep agent behaviour separate from marketing language.

    4 lessons · 40 min

    1. 1.1Chat, assistant, agent or automation?You can choose the right operating mode for a task before giving it access or autonomy9 min
    2. 1.2Delegation is a contractYou can write a brief that defines the goal, evidence, boundaries and definition of done12 min
    3. 1.3Define the blast radius firstYou can match the amount of autonomy to the cost of a wrong action10 min
    4. 1.4Why the demo worked and your run did notYou can predict where a demonstrated agent capability will fail on your own inputs before you rely on it9 min
  2. 2

    Plans, tools and access

    Make the route inspectable, give the minimum useful access, and keep irreversible actions behind approval.

    4 lessons · 39 min

    1. 2.1Plan before the tools runYou can review an agent plan for missing evidence, unsafe actions and unnecessary work10 min
    2. 2.2Give the minimum useful accessYou can scope files, accounts and permissions to one job instead of your whole working life9 min
    3. 2.3Approvals that carry informationYou can design an approval checkpoint that lets a person judge the real action in seconds10 min
    4. 2.4What the agent actually knowsYou can control an agent's context and memory so it works from current facts rather than stale or borrowed ones10 min
  3. 3

    Evidence, evaluation and failure

    Judge the run from records you can inspect, test awkward cases and route uncertainty to a person.

    4 lessons · 46 min

    1. 3.1Require an evidence packetYou can separate sourced facts, agent interpretation and unresolved gaps in the final result12 min
    2. 3.2Build a small evaluation setYou can test an agent against representative and awkward cases before trusting a live run14 min
    3. 3.3Route failure instead of hiding itYou can define failure states, retries and human handoffs before the first live run10 min
    4. 3.4Time, cost and the run that will not stopYou can put a ceiling on an agent run before it meets a task it cannot finish10 min
  4. 4

    From useful run to operating practice

    Pilot safely, keep ownership visible and decide whether the work belongs in chat, an agent or an automation.

    3 lessons · 35 min

    1. 4.1Run a bounded pilotYou can design a pilot with a baseline, limit, success measure and kill condition12 min
    2. 4.2Name the owner and keep a run recordYou can make one person accountable for access, review, changes and shutdown10 min
    3. 4.3Know when to automateYou can turn a stable delegated task into a specification for a repeatable workflow13 min

Practical evidence pack

Briefs you complete against your own real work, each with a published rubric. The work stays yours; the course gives it a clear quality bar.

  1. Write a delegation contract for real work

    35 min

    A one-page delegation contract plus the first operational plan, with every external consequence marked for approval.

  2. Design the access and the approvals before granting anything

    35 min

    An access register covering every connection the task needs, an action list classified by blast radius and reversibility, one drafted approval screen showing a real proposed action, and the three run ceilings with the sentence permitting the agent to stop at them.

  3. Evaluate and redesign one agent run

    40 min

    The run record, three evaluation cases, your corrections and a revised specification stating what stays agentic and what should become fixed workflow.

The evidence you keep

  • A delegation contract and operational plan for a real multi-step task
  • A ten-case evaluation set including edge cases, known failures and a safe refusal
  • A run record, access register and revised agent specification

Free assessment, paid certificate

$129 once

15 questions on the competencies above, free to sit. You need 12 to pass, every answer is explained whether you get it right or wrong, and retakes are unlimited. Once you have passed, the certificate — in your name, with a credential ID anyone can verify — is the part that costs, and the price above is the whole of it.

What is free and what is paid

Start AID-300

First lesson is 9 minutes and needs no account.

  • Your place is kept — pick up on your phone where you left off on your laptop
  • Lessons you have finished stay finished, even if you clear your browser
  • Assessment results are recorded against you, permanently

Free account, no card, nothing to cancel.

Start AID-300 free

Next in the path: AIA-300 AI Automation