Module 10 · End-of-module check

Module 10 — End-of-module check.

8 questions · 4 MC / 2 short-answer / 2 applied Self-rubric: 16 criteria — all 16 pass to ship the capstone

A final integrative check that you have internalized the capstone discipline — scoping, posture inheritance, isolation-first building, integration, seven-day observation, and the shipping ritual. Unlike prior end-of-module checks, this one does not test new concepts — Module 10 introduces none. It tests whether you have put the course’s earlier modules together under the capstone ritual, and whether your own capstone is ready to send to the reviewer.

Multiple choice CORE

4 questions · closed-book.

Q1. Which of the following best describes the capstone’s three-shape rule?
  • A The capstone must include exactly three components, all of the same shape, to demonstrate depth.
  • B The capstone must include at least three integrated components covering at least three different agentic shapes out of the four (scheduled/automated, coding/build, research-or-inbox, custom skill/plugin). Three components of one shape does not qualify.
  • C The capstone must include one component for each of the ten modules.
  • D The capstone must include three components that never share state.
Show explanation

Answer: B. The three-shape rule is Lesson 10.1’s central scoping move. (A) misreads — the rule is diversity across shapes, not uniformity. (C) is absurd. (D) is the opposite of integration; the course requires integration through shared state.

Q2. A student’s architecture (Lesson 10.2) introduces a new third-party API call the Module 9 posture document does not cover. What is the right response?
  • A Write the key into the architecture file.
  • B Add a trust boundary for the new source to the architecture’s Section 3, store the key per the Module 9 secrets rule, amend the posture document to cover the new boundary and the new key’s rotation cadence, and note both in Section 6 of the architecture.
  • C Assume the API is trusted because the student has an account.
  • D Skip the amendment; posture amendments are Lesson 9 territory, not Lesson 10.
Show explanation

Answer: B. Posture inheritance is active across Module 10; amendments are written and dated the same way Lesson 9 taught. (A) violates the no-secrets-in-documents rule. (C) repeats the Module 7/9 supply-chain mistake. (D) misreads the architecture’s Section 6 purpose.

Q3. During the seven-day observation window, a student notices on day 4 that sensitive data briefly went to the cloud model on day 2 because of a routing bug. What does the lesson recommend?
  • A Ignore it; it’s only one occurrence.
  • B Continue the window and note the incident at the end.
  • C Run the incident loop (stop, assess, repair, tell the reviewer), amend the posture if needed, and restart the seven-day window from day one — the posture was violated, so the window is invalid.
  • D Skip ahead to Lesson 10.5 and document the issue in the reflection.
Show explanation

Answer: C. A posture violation invalidates the window; restart is the rule. This is the discipline Content Block 5 of Lesson 10.4 names directly. (A) and (B) abdicate the posture. (D) papers over the violation rather than fixing it.

Q4. The demo video is 3–5 minutes and follows five beats. Which beat proves the system is operated, not just running?
  • A Beat 1 — What this is, in one sentence.
  • B Beat 2 — One real end-to-end run.
  • C Beat 3 — The intentional failure and the recovery.
  • D Beat 5 — What I would build next.
Show explanation

Answer: C. Lesson 10.5 Content Block 3 names this: Beat 3 is the operator-vs.-running distinction. (A) is the purpose statement. (B) is running. (D) is forward-looking.

Short answer CORE

2 questions · 3–5 sentences each · closed-book.

Q5. Explain in your own words why the capstone charter (Lesson 10.1) is written and frozen before the architecture (Lesson 10.2), and why the architecture is written and frozen before the build (Lesson 10.3). What goes wrong when the order is reversed?

Expected elements in the answer:

  • The charter commits to what the system does, its audience, and the three-shape rule — which bounds the design space the architecture will work inside.
  • The architecture commits to how each component works, how shared state flows, and what it costs — which bounds the implementation space the build will work inside.
  • Reversing the order (building first, scoping later) produces a capstone that is whatever the student happened to be working on, rather than a capstone with a defined pass/fail shape.
  • Reversing the middle (architecture before charter) leaves the architecture with no committed scope to be accountable to, so architectural drift happens silently.

A passing answer names both freezes, the bounding role each plays for the next stage, and at least one concrete failure mode when the order is reversed.

Q6. The course names the Module 9 posture document as the operating contract for the capstone. Name two ways Module 10 deliberately extends the posture — one that is required of every capstone, one that is optional depending on the student’s architecture. Explain what those extensions change about how the capstone is operated.

Expected elements in the answer:

  • Required extension: the seven-day observation window is a specifically-capstone extension of the posture; the posture said “operate responsibly” in the abstract, and Module 10 says “operate cleanly for seven consecutive calendar days under every posture rule.” That is a new, testable commitment.
  • Optional extension: any posture amendment that comes out of a new trust boundary, new secret, new data flow, or new plugin the capstone introduced. A capstone that introduces none requires no amendment; a capstone that introduces one or more gets amendments during Lesson 10.2 and sometimes again during Lesson 10.4.
  • In both cases, the posture remains the single operating contract; Module 10 makes the contract’s constraints bite against a real, running system.

A passing answer names the seven-day window as the required extension, names amendments as the optional extension with a specific trigger, and frames the posture as the one operating contract the capstone runs under.

Applied CORE

2 questions · written response · open-workstation.

Q7 — Capstone self-rubric walkthrough (applied). Walk your own capstone against the sixteen pass/fail criteria below. For each criterion, write pass or fail and name the artifact that evidences the pass (or the gap that caused the fail). This is the rubric the parent will use; this is your own pre-check.

The sixteen criteria:

  1. Capstone charter exists at /capstone/capstone-charter.md, is frozen, and passes the scope-check activity (7/7).
  2. Capstone charter names three components covering three different agentic shapes.
  3. Capstone charter names the student as the sole audience and explicitly rejects at least one public-output temptation.
  4. Capstone architecture exists at /capstone/capstone-architecture.md, is frozen, and has six sections filled.
  5. System diagram exists and is linked from the architecture’s Section 2.
  6. Architecture’s Section 5 contains a measured cost estimate (not only a pre-flight estimate) that fits inside the monthly budget from the posture.
  7. Architecture’s Section 6 names the posture amendments (if any) the capstone introduced, with the posture document re-dated accordingly.
  8. /capstone/pipeline-v1/ exists with three component subfolders, each with its own README and smoke test.
  9. All three smoke tests pass in isolation.
  10. The pipeline runs end-to-end through shared state, and the kill switch halts all components within the time recorded in Section 4.
  11. /capstone/incident-drill-afteraction.md exists and names the scenario, the four-step timeline, and what was learned.
  12. /capstone/observation-log.md contains seven clean daily blocks.
  13. /capstone/capstone-final.md exists, is frozen, and reads as a fifteen-minute summary.
  14. /capstone/demo.mp4 exists, is 3–5 minutes long, and covers the five beats.
  15. /capstone/capstone-reflection.md exists, is frozen, and answers the five prompts.
  16. /capstone/named-human-signoff.md exists and answers the three sign-off questions.

(The criteria are 16 in the self-rubric and 15 in the parent-facing rubric — criterion 16, the reviewer sign-off, is part of the parent rubric as one criterion covering both the file and the three-question content. The numbering difference is intentional.)

Self-rubric table (one-page version). Use this after finishing Lesson 10.5, before sending the capstone to the reviewer. A capstone that passes all 16 criteria is ready. A capstone that fails any criterion is revised before sign-off.

# Criterion Evidence Pass / Fail
1 Charter frozen, scope check 7/7 capstone-charter.md  
2 Three shapes capstone-charter.md Section 3  
3 Audience = only you, public-output rejection capstone-charter.md Sections 2, 5  
4 Architecture frozen, six sections capstone-architecture.md  
5 System diagram present system-diagram.png  
6 Measured cost inside budget capstone-architecture.md Section 5  
7 Posture amendments (or “none”) noted capstone-architecture.md Section 6, security-posture.md  
8 Pipeline folder with three components /capstone/pipeline-v1/  
9 All three smoke tests pass in isolation smoke-test.sh outputs  
10 End-to-end run works; kill switch halts in recorded time observation-log.md, capstone-architecture.md Section 4  
11 Incident drill after-action incident-drill-afteraction.md  
12 Seven clean daily blocks observation-log.md  
13 Final doc reads in ~15 min capstone-final.md  
14 Demo video, 3–5 min, five beats demo.mp4  
15 Reflection, five prompts capstone-reflection.md  
16 Named-human sign-off, three questions answered named-human-signoff.md  

The parent-facing version of this rubric is in /capstone/capstone-rubric.md; it uses the same criteria but adds a two-column layout for parent notes and an optional 0–4 score appendix for parents who need a letter grade.

Q8 — Closing reflection (applied). In one paragraph (5–8 sentences), answer the following: Of the nine modules before Module 10, which one do you think contributed most to the success of your capstone, and which one do you think you most underused? Is the underused module a gap you’d now revisit, or a signal that your capstone was scoped away from that module’s concerns?

Reflection rubric:

  • The question exists to let you see the ten modules as a system — not ten separate assignments, but one connected shape you just finished operating.
  • There is no wrong answer; a thoughtful one names a specific module, a specific contribution, and an honest gap.
  • The response should feel honest, not flattering. A thin or defensive reflection is a revision signal — take an hour and re-draft.
  • A strong response distinguishes between a gap to revisit (e.g., “I underused Module 7 — my capstone doesn’t use any custom skills or plugins, and I think that’s a gap I’ll close in the first Recipe Book quarter”) and a scoped-away concern (e.g., “I underused Module 6 because my capstone intentionally does no scheduled automation — that was a scoping choice, not a blind spot”).

Honesty in the reflection is the rubric’s most distinctive feature and the one reviewers notice most.

Course complete

You finished AI Architect Academy.

If the sixteen criteria pass and the reviewer has signed off, the capstone is shipped and the course is done. There is no Module 11. The course ends here by design — what comes next is not more lessons but the long work of staying an operator. The posture review cadence you set in Module 9 keeps running on its quarterly rhythm. The Recipe Book you started in Module 8 gets a quarterly refresh as tools and vendors change. The capstone itself is a snapshot of who you were as an operator this season; next season, the snapshot will look different, and that is the point. You are not a student of AI anymore. You are someone who directs AI systems across your computer to do real work, and who owns the posture under which they run.

← Back to Module 10

Return to the curriculum overview to see the arc of all ten modules as one shape.