Methodology
AI-First Blueprint
The methodology I wrote for teams building software with AI agents — without the chaos slowing them down.
Public, free, tool-agnostic. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Aider, Windsurf — or whatever comes next.
Why did this come about?
5 restarts
A team restarted their MVP five times trying to maintain context between AI sessions.
11 hours
A tech lead spent eleven hours writing a single prompt for an undocumented project.
2h vs 1 sprint
What takes 2 hours with docs takes a full sprint without them.
The difference between a team that flies with AI and one that gets stuck isn't the tool or the model. It's the quality of the context they give the agent.
When that context lives in someone's head, an old Slack thread, or a stale README, the agent improvises. The AI-First Blueprint is the answer: a chain of simple artifacts any team can adopt so the AI always has what it needs.
The artifact chain
Seven artifacts, in a specific order. Each feeds the next. Together they form the project's brain.
- 01
PRD
The what and why of the product.
- 02
Module specs
How each piece is built.
- 03
Design guide
Visual system and UI patterns.
- 04
AGENTS.md
The project brain. The AI reads this before every task.
- 05
Skills
Specialized knowledge, loaded on-demand.
- 06
Protocols
Operating rules: UX, changes, closure, features.
- 07
Logs
Sessions and changes. The project's memory.
Built with focus, not haste
I'm Charlie Herrera, Product Design Engineer. I've spent over a decade designing digital products and the last few years closing the gap between design and development with coding agents.
The AI-First Blueprint is my synthesis of painful learning: what works, what doesn't, and why.
Verify authorship at ai-first.autenticsign.com ↗Take it to your next project
Bundle of 7 templates
Ready to copy to the root of your repo. Work with any coding tool.
- AGENTS.md — Project brain template
- CLAUDE.md — Claude Code connector
- GUIA_DISENO.md — Evolving visual system
- UX Protocol — Navigation and interaction patterns
- Changes Protocol — Post-implementation management
- Closure Protocol — Clean session closure
- Features Protocol — Guided feature development
Want to implement it with your team?
The bundle is a great foundation, but adopting the methodology on a real team means adapting protocols, training people, and adjusting to your stack. If you want me along for that, we do it together.
- Initial audit of your current setup
- Customization of artifacts to your stack
- Team onboarding (1–2 sessions)
- Support during the first sprint with the methodology