The Full Apparatus Curriculum: 101, 202, and 303 Explained
What each level covers, who it is for, and how the progression works. A map for firms that found their way here and want context.
Many firms find Apparatus through the custom development work - a case study, a referral, something in the 303 content. Then they look around and see that there is more to the picture. This article explains how the three levels connect and what each one is actually about.
The short version: 101 and 202 are half-day workshops focused on building firm-level AI practice. 303 is a custom development engagement where Apparatus builds something proprietary for your firm. They are designed as a progression, but that does not mean every firm does all three.
Foundations (101): from scattered use to shared standard
The Foundations workshop is for firms where AI use is real but uneven. People are using it - mostly ChatGPT, some Claude - but everyone has their own approach, prompts are not shared, and there is no common standard for what good output looks like. The firm is getting some value but leaving a lot on the table.
The workshop covers prompt fluency: how to write prompts that produce reliable output rather than output that varies unpredictably. It also addresses what most individual learning misses - the firm dimension. A team where each person has their own prompting style has not actually built a capability. It has a collection of individual habits that cannot compound.
What the workshop produces: a team that writes prompts to a shared standard, a seeded prompt library the firm actually owns, and a Claude Project with the firm's context built in - so every team member starts from a common foundation rather than starting from scratch each session.
101 is the right starting point if your team's AI use feels fragmented - if you would describe it as "people doing their own thing" rather than "the firm has a practice." The gap between those two is not knowledge, it is structure. The workshop provides the structure.
Learn more about the Foundations workshop at the 101 page.
Power tools (202): from individual fluency to firm infrastructure
The Power Tools workshop is for firms that have the basics but whose individual capability has not become firm infrastructure. People know how to write good prompts. But the prompts live in personal chat histories, the workflows have never been documented, and if the person who figured something out leaves or is unavailable, the knowledge goes with them.
202 introduces Skills - packaged, reusable AI workflows any team member can run with consistent results. It covers connecting AI to your firm's actual data sources through MCP connectors, so the tools your team uses can draw on your files, your CRM, your knowledge base, rather than working only with what you paste in manually. It also addresses workflow documentation: turning the things your best people do into documented assets the firm owns.
What the workshop produces: a Skills library built specifically for your firm's workflows, connected data sources, and the workflows themselves documented as assets that survive personnel changes. The shift from 101 to 202 is the shift from "our people are good at AI" to "our firm has AI infrastructure."
The article From prompt library to firm OS gets into what that infrastructure looks like in practice. More on the difference between using AI and building AI infrastructure is worth reading if you are trying to locate where your firm currently sits.
Learn more at the 202 page.
Custom development (303): building something proprietary
303 is not a workshop. It is a development engagement - Apparatus builds a custom AI tool for your firm, scoped individually to the specific workflow or problem you want to address.
The kinds of things that get built at 303: a research methodology encoded into a system any analyst can run, a contract risk scoring tool trained on your firm's review criteria, a client reporting tool that pulls from source data and formats to your template, an onboarding system that delivers your firm's accumulated knowledge systematically rather than hoping it gets passed on in conversation.
What 303 produces is a tool your firm owns outright. Code, documentation, and your environment. If the engagement ends, the tool keeps running. That is a first-order design principle, not an afterthought.
What 303 is not
- A training session or workshop
- A subscription to a third-party AI product
- A generic implementation of off-the-shelf tools
- Something that requires ongoing Apparatus involvement to keep running
What 303 is
- A scoped build engagement with a defined handoff
- A tool your firm owns, built to your specific workflow
- Starts with discovery before any design or build
- Tested against real work before delivery
Learn more at the 303 page.
How the progression works
You do not have to do all three. Some firms come directly to 303 because they have a specific thing they want to build and have already done the foundational work elsewhere. Some firms do 101 and find that is exactly what they needed, with no immediate reason to go further.
That said, each level makes the next more effective. A firm that arrives at 303 with strong infrastructure from 202 - documented workflows, connected data sources, a team that understands what good AI output looks like - will get a better tool in less time than a firm that skips directly to building without that foundation.
The reason is discovery. At 303, the discovery phase involves externalizing your firm's workflows, standards, and judgment in enough detail to encode them in a system. A firm that has already done this work at 202 - that has documented its workflows and built its Skills library - enters discovery with much of that material already articulated. The gap is smaller. The specification is tighter. The build is more targeted.
The article What to have in place before you build custom AI agents describes exactly what that readiness looks like. If you are reading this from the 303 end and wondering whether you have the right foundation, that article is the most direct answer.
If you know where you want to start, the pages for 101, 202, and 303 have the specifics. If you are still figuring out which level fits where your firm currently is, the most useful starting point is identifying the right first project - the answer to that question usually makes the level question obvious.