A free self-paced curriculum for the Forward Deployed Engineer role — the person who sits with a customer and turns an AI model into a system that actually runs in production. 11 modules, 150+ topic articles, 700+ open-book questions and 15 daily drill questions, covering systems thinking, problem decomposition, LLM/RAG/agent architecture, data and event systems, physical AI and robotics, plus client discovery, integration, deployment and stakeholder management. It also publishes a map of 15 layers of the modern AI engineering stack drawn from real FDE and AI-engineer job specs, with links out to where to learn each one.
Why I recommend it: The whole curriculum opens without an account or a card — I checked — and an account only saves your progress. There is no pricing page anywhere on it, so nothing is being held back behind a paywall today. Worth knowing why this matters: 'Forward Deployed Engineer' is a job title that is actually being hired for right now, and it pays like engineering while rewarding the consulting side most engineers avoid. Two flags. It is one person's independent site, not an accredited course or a certificate anyone will recognize — the value is the material, not a credential. And it makes a strong claim, that foundation models are becoming a commodity and the money lives in the last mile; that is an argument, not a measured finding, so read it as a well-argued position.
Amazon's agentic coding environment: you write a spec, and its agents plan, build and check code across a codebase. Runs as a desktop app.
From the site: Kiro helps developers and teams do their best work: turn prompts into executable specs, validate code correctness to find bugs unit tests miss, and build across large codebases with parallel agents that learn from every session.
Why I recommend it: Freemium. The free plan gives you 50 credits a month plus access to Claude Sonnet 4.5 and open-weight models, subject to rate limits; paid plans start at $20 a month. Fine for trying agentic coding, not for all-day use.
An open-source platform for running coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex across your own machines and specialising them for domains like CAD, PCBs, robotics and games, with optional open hardware.
From the site: Follow your curiosity. Build across disciplines. Open-source software and hardware for polymaths in the making. - autonomous-ai/openharness
Why I recommend it: The software is free and open source. The agents you run inside it may cost money, and the companion hardware is a separate purchase — the repo itself is the free part.
No-code AI agent builder with a free tier: one agent, 1,000 runs/month, access to 200+ models through the MindStudio router, and a library of tutorials and past trainings. Paid plans add unlimited agents and runs.
An open-source platform for building and running AI apps and agents, with a hosted option and a full self-hosted Docker install.
From the site: Build Agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, with rich AI model and tool support on one collaborative workspace. Deploy on cloud, VPC, or self-hosted, so teams move from prototype to production without ...
Why I recommend it: More structure than a chat window: prompts, data and logs kept in one place. Start with their Docker install and one small app.
A company building governed, verifiable agentic infrastructure for enterprise systems, with free research and publications on its site.
From the site: Emergence builds mission-critical agentic infrastructure for enterprise. Verified, governed AI agents that plan, reason, and act across the most complex systems.
Why I recommend it: Their research and reports are free to read; the platform itself is an enterprise product, so treat the writing as the resource here.
A self-hosted, MIT-licensed AI agent with persistent memory that builds skills over time and reaches you on Telegram, Discord and other channels.
From the site: Self-hosted AI agent that remembers your projects, builds skills automatically, and reaches you on Telegram, Discord & more. MIT license. No tracking.
Why I recommend it: Free and open source, and it runs on your own machine — worth a look if you don't want your project context sitting on someone else's server.
A free, open-source security scanner that checks AI agent skills and MCP servers for prompt injection, data exfiltration and supply-chain risks before you install them.
Why I recommend it: If you install agent skills, scan them first. This is the free tool to do it with.
Free online session with Brandon Waselnuk of Unblocked on giving AI coding agents real context so they produce usable work the first time, including a live before-and-after demo and two open-source tools to try.
Details: Free, online, 9:00 AM PT on September 23, 2026. Registration required.
