Joelclaw wizardshit

Work on wizardshit.ai — Joel's AI education platform teaching the exploratory journey of building systems with and around AI. Covers the Next.js app in gremlin, The Claw course design, and the manage brain vault. Triggers on: 'wizardshit', 'wizard shit', 'wizardshit.ai', 'the claw course', 'agent game generation', 'zots', 'minions of toil'.

install
source · Clone the upstream repo
git clone https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw
Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/
T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/wizardshit" ~/.claude/skills/joelhooks-joelclaw-wizardshit && rm -rf "$T"
manifest: skills/wizardshit/SKILL.md
source content

wizardshit.ai

Joel's AI education platform. The crux: teach the exploratory journey of building systems with and around AI.

Not a polished curriculum factory — a system that teaches by showing the system being built. Digital garden philosophy applied to AI education.

Repositories

App:
~/Code/badass-courses/gremlin/apps/wizardshit-ai/

Next.js 16 app in the gremlin monorepo (

badass-courses/gremlin
). Uses the badass-courses platform:

  • @badass-courses/core
    ,
    @badass-courses/sdk
    ,
    @badass-courses/next
    ,
    @badass-courses/ui
  • Convex backend via
    @badass-courses/convex-adapter
  • Package name:
    @wizardshit/web

The gremlin monorepo has its own

AGENTS.md
read it before any gremlin work:

cat ~/Code/badass-courses/gremlin/AGENTS.md

Brain/Design:
~/Code/joelhooks/manage/

Vercel manage repo with PARA-structured brain vault. Course design docs live here:

  • brain/01 Projects/Agent Game Generation/
    — The Claw course design bible
  • skills/the-claw-course-design/SKILL.md
    — course design process skill
  • docs/decisions/
    — ADRs for the manage workspace

Key design documents (read in order):

  1. Course Concept.md
    — canonical spec (~5K words)
  2. Lesson Bookends.md
    — first and last lesson, fully workshopped
  3. Game Design Patterns.md
    — 20 patterns mapping game mechanics → agent architecture
  4. Research - Schell Lenses x Dwarf Fortress x The Claw.md
  5. Research - 4CID Learning Design Bible.md
  6. Research - Dwarf Fortress Design Philosophy.md
  7. Research - just-bash as Game Engine.md
  8. Research - Game Design Bibles.md
    — Koster + Schell
  9. Research - Prior Art and Landscape.md
  10. Research - Multi-Agent Frameworks as MUD Architecture.md
  11. Research - MUD Architecture and Platform Primitives.md

Public gist (full design docs):

https://gist.github.com/joelhooks/99b7188fdd775b32b646ee72484774cc

Two Versions

  1. Vercel Academy — toned-down business version. Vercel-native stack (Workflow, Sandbox, Queues, AI Gateway, just-bash). Draft: https://vercel.com/academy/draft/agent-game-generation
  2. wizardshit.ai — the full unfiltered version. Free to use whatever infra. Inngest, k8s, Redis, self-hosted — whatever's best.

The Claw: Minions of Toil

The flagship course. A roguelite colony management sim where Zots (autonomous AI agents) toil in a fantasy dungeon generated from real codebases.

Core insight: the game mechanics ARE agent architecture patterns. Health bar = context window. Abilities = tools. Party = multi-agent delegation. Combat = error handling. The representation IS the thing.

Design foundations:

  • Koster — fun = learning patterns in a safe space
  • Schell — 100+ lenses for design evaluation
  • 4C/ID — whole-task from day 1, scaffolding fades, driven by what breaks
  • Dwarf Fortress — colony management, autonomous actors, "losing is fun", emergent narrative

Tech (wizardshit version — free to choose):

  • just-bash — the game engine (virtual filesystem sandbox)
  • AI SDK — Zot brains
  • Inngest — tick engine, durable workflows
  • Whatever persistence/state makes sense

Linear: DX-2875

Working With This Project

  1. For gremlin app work:
    cd ~/Code/badass-courses/gremlin
    and read its AGENTS.md
  2. For course design:
    cd ~/Code/joelhooks/manage
    and read the brain vault docs
  3. For joelclaw integration: this is where wizardshit infra decisions may overlap with joelclaw patterns
  4. Load the
    gremlin
    skill for gremlin-repo-specific guidance