Chapter 3 · Section 06 · On the clock

Build yourMBA advisor

It knows the packet · it learns your goals · it shows its sources

Before you begin

This one has
more ways to be wrong

The page followed instructions. An advisor exercises judgment — it reads sources, weighs your priorities, and gives a different answer to every person in this room. More agency, more usefulness, more ways to go wrong.

Check

mba-materials.zip — on Canvas <where on Canvas (module or page) — to be added>
<plus a line reading "Download before class — it's about N MB." — to be added>
Read this once. What you build today is useful, not authoritative. It cannot change Sloan policy, and it does not replace academic, career, financial, legal, or accessibility staff. Treat it as a very well-read study partner.
Twenty-five minutes on the clock. Steps 1 to 4 build the advisor, ending with one real question you care about. Testing it is the next guide — section 07, on its own clock.

Pace yourself against the clock

Time left on the room timer — the countdown on the screen at the front.

21:00 left source-map.md lists every supplied file.
15:00 left my-profile.md is reviewed and corrected.
10:00 left advisor-start.md is saved.
7:00 left The advisor is running and you've checked that it read the right files.
3:00 left You've asked one real question you care about. The point
0:00 You've inspected the answer — sources, hedges, what it didn't say.

If something's wrong

The download is slow, stalled, or blocked

Don't sit and watch a progress bar. Pair with a neighbour who already has it and copy the folder across — a memory stick, AirDrop, or a shared folder all work.

A helper can also hand you the packet on a USB stick. Ask for one rather than retrying the download.

Step 1 of 4

Inventory the packet

Ground it in authoritative material before you personalize anything. You're building a map of what the advisor is allowed to treat as fact.

What you're building

mba-advisor/ the workspace — bring it back next session
├─ mba-materials/ official source files, from Canvas
├─ source-map.md what each source contains, when to use it
├─ my-profile.md your goals, constraints, tradeoffs
├─ advisor-start.md the rules that start the advisor
└─ test-log.md what worked, failed, and changed

Do this

  1. Open mba-advisor in Claude Code Same three moves as setup: open the Code tab, choose to open a project folder, and pick mba-advisor — it's beside personal-site. Your warm-up page is untouched; you can switch back the same way.
  2. Put mba-materials inside it Windows: right-click the .zip, choose Extract All, then Extract — don't drag files out of the preview window. Mac: double-click it. Then drag the mba-materials folder into mba-advisor. If it lands under a different name, rename it to mba-materials.
  3. Ask Claude to inventory every file It will ask before writing anything — that's Manual mode from setup. Approve it.
  4. Ask it to write source-map.md Filename, topic, and when that source is useful.
Inventory prompt

List every file in this project folder, including files inside subfolders. Then write source-map.md. For each file give: the filename, what it covers, and when it would be the right source to consult. Do not summarize the contents in detail yet, and do not include any file you could not actually open — list those separately as unreadable.

Quality check: every file in the packet should appear in source-map.md — either as a mapped entry or in the unreadable list. Count both. Open mba-materials in Finder or File Explorer and count what's there, including anything inside subfolders. A map that quietly skips three documents is worse than no map, because you'll trust it.

Done when

Two minutes, then raise your hand. Show us the screen rather than starting over — a stuck session is the most useful thing you can show a helper.

If something's wrong

I can see the files but Claude can't

Almost always the zip. On Windows, double-clicking a .zip opens a preview window that looks exactly like a folder — files dragged out of it one at a time land somewhere you didn't choose, and the folder Claude is looking at stays empty. Extract the archive properly, then move the whole extracted folder into mba-advisor.

Then check what it can actually see: "Which folder are you working in, and what do you see in it?"

It asked me to approve something

That's the permissions layer from setup doing its job. Read what it wants to write, then approve it.

The warm-up asked you to stay in Manual throughout. Here, if you'd rather stop approving every file, you can switch to Accept edits — but read the first two or three before you do.

It says it can't read some of the files

Scanned PDFs are images, so there may be no text to read. That's a real limit and worth noticing out loud — ask it to list those files as unreadable in the map rather than guessing at their contents.

If everything is unreadable, you've probably opened the wrong folder. Ask: "Which folder are you working in, and what do you see in it?"

The map is missing files, or invented ones

Say exactly what you counted: "There are NN files in mba-materials and your map accounts for MM. List every file again, including subfolders, and rewrite the map."

Invented entries are the more serious failure. If you see one, that's worth raising your hand about — it's a live example of the thing this whole session is warning you about.

It's summarizing everything at length and taking forever

Stop it: "Too much detail. One line per file." You want a map, not a digest — the reading happens later, when a real question needs it.

Step 2 of 4

Teach it who you are

Same move as the warm-up: let it interview you rather than drafting a perfect profile from scratch. The correction pass at the end is the real point — you approve the profile before anything relies on it.

Profile prompt

Interview me one question at a time — no more than five — about: - career direction - skills I want to build - communities and experiences I value - time and scheduling constraints - tradeoffs I am willing to make Then summarize my answers in my-profile.md and ask me to correct it.

Paste it into the chat and press Enter. Answer one question at a time — rough answers are fine. When it writes my-profile.md, approve the edit, then read it back and correct what's wrong. Correcting it is the step.

Privacy. Only include what you're comfortable storing in a folder on your laptop. Do not add financial, health, accessibility, immigration, or identity information — none of it makes the advice better, and all of it makes the file riskier.

Done when

If something's wrong

The profile sounds like a cover letter, not like me

Say so: "This is too polished and too positive. Rewrite it plainly, including the constraints and the things I said I'd give up." A profile that only contains ambitions produces advice that ignores your actual life.

I don't know my career direction yet

Say that — it's a real and useful answer. "I'm genuinely undecided between two directions; treat that uncertainty as a fact about me and don't resolve it for me." An advisor that knows you're exploring gives better advice than one guessing you're sure.

It asked all five questions at once

"One at a time, please. Wait for my answer before the next question." The one-at-a-time constraint exists because your third answer changes what the fourth question should be.

I'm behind. What can I skip?

Nothing outright — each step's boxes have to be ticked before the next one opens. But two things can be done lightly: the correction pass on my-profile.md can be one line rather than a careful edit, and test-log.md can be three lines.

Do the source map, the rules file, and the test guide properly. Those are the exercise. An advisor with a thin profile still teaches you something; an advisor you never tested teaches you nothing.

Step 3 of 4

Write the rules

Behaviour design, written down — inspectable, and revisable when a test fails. Ask Claude to save these six lines as advisor-start.md — you never type the file yourself. Approve the write when Claude asks.

The six rules

  1. Answer the decision — don't just summarize documents. Direct
  2. Use my-profile.md to personalize the recommendation. Personal
  3. Cite the supporting file and section when possible. Traceable
  4. Separate official facts from your judgment. Traceable
  5. Say when the materials do not support an answer. Honest
  6. Ask a follow-up when missing info would change the advice. Honest
Create the rules file

Create advisor-start.md containing exactly these rules: 1. Answer the decision — don't just summarize documents. 2. Use my-profile.md to personalize the recommendation. 3. Cite the supporting file and section when possible. 4. Separate official facts from your judgment. 5. Say when the materials do not support an answer. 6. Ask a follow-up when missing info would change the advice.

These four colours follow you through the rest of the session. They're the same four qualities you'll grade the answers against, and the same four you'll come back and strengthen when a test fails.

Done when

If something's wrong

What should I add?

Things you actually want. "Be blunt — no encouraging preamble." "Always give me a second option I might not have considered." "Keep answers under 200 words unless I ask for more." Rules about how it talks to you are as legitimate as rules about evidence.

Isn't this just a prompt? Why a file?

Because a file survives the conversation. Next session you'll open this folder, and the rules will still be there — along with the profile, the map, and the test log. That persistence is what makes this a workspace instead of a chat.

Step 4 of 4

Start the advisor

Three files, one instruction, and the thing wakes up knowing the packet and knowing you.

Do this

  1. Start a new chat — still in mba-advisor. This is the advisor chat. Look for the control that starts a new conversation, not the one that opens a folder. The chat from steps 1 to 3 is the build chat — keep it open; the test guide uses both. The advisor gets a clean chat, so the only thing in its head is the three files it's about to read.
  2. Paste the start prompt below Then watch its first reply for the four behaviours.
Start the advisor

Act as my personal Sloan MBA advisor for this session. First read source-map.md, my-profile.md, and the rules in advisor-start.md. Use the files in mba-materials as the source of truth for factual claims about Sloan. If any of those three files is missing, tell me which one before you start. Help me make decisions, not just find passages. For every recommendation: answer directly, explain why it fits my profile, cite the source file and section, and label judgment and uncertainty. If the materials do not support an answer, say so. Begin by telling me what kinds of decisions you can help with, based on the sources you found.

Four behaviours to watch for in its first reply

Answer Personalize Cite Admit uncertainty
Change the tone and priorities freely — keep the grounding and uncertainty rules. If you want a blunter advisor, or one that leads with tradeoffs, say so. What shouldn't change is that claims trace to sources and gaps get admitted.

Done when

If something's wrong

It says one of the three files is missing

You can still run it. Say: "Start anyway without that file, and tell me what you'll be missing because of it." A missing my-profile.md costs you personalization; a missing source-map.md costs you citations. If it's advisor-start.md, go back to step 3 — that one is the exercise.

It's summarizing documents instead of answering

The most common failure, and rule 1 exists for it. Push back in the moment — "You summarized. What should I actually do, and why that rather than the alternative?" — then, in the test guide, strengthen the rule so you don't have to keep saying it.

It isn't citing anything

"For every factual claim, name the file and section it came from. If you can't, say that it's your judgment rather than something in the materials."

It forgot the rules halfway through

Long conversations drift. "Re-read advisor-start.md and apply it to your last answer." If it keeps drifting, that's information: your rules may be too many or too vague to hold onto.

It's built. Now find out what you built.

You grounded an agent in official sources, taught it your priorities, wrote its rules down where you can inspect them, and asked it one question you actually care about. Whether it deserves your trust is the next guide — its own section, its own clock.

Keep both chats open. The build chat edits files; the advisor chat answers. The test uses both.

Next: test it — section 07 All guides