CS1 Quickstart Guide

This guide walks you from zero to a working PathMX curriculum repo adapted for your own CS1 course. The whole process takes about 15 minutes with an AI coding agent.

If you are new to coding agents, read the Choosing an Agent guide first.

What You Need

  • A GitHub account
  • Git installed on your machine
  • A text editor or IDE with agent support (see Choosing an Agent)
  • Python 3 (for the example export scripts and as the default CS1 language)

Clone the Starter

Fork or clone the companion repository:

git clone https://github.com/pathmx/cs1-example
cd cs1-example

The repo has this structure:

.
├── AGENTS.md                        # instructions for your coding agent
├── agent-setup.guide.md             # detailed agent workflow reference
├── course.outcomes.md               # baseline CS1 learning outcomes
├── course.style-guide.md            # writing and content rules
├── cohort/
│   └── cohort.profile.md            # aggregated cohort context
├── students/
│   └── student-ax7k.persona.md      # example anonymized student persona
├── templates/
│   ├── template.lab.md
│   ├── template.persona.md
│   ├── template.project.md
│   └── template.rubric.md
├── scripts/
│   ├── export-specs-to-pdf.py
│   └── export-by-type.py
└── paths/                           # all student-facing content
    ├── index.path.md                # root of the student knowledge graph
    ├── labs/
    │   ├── lab-01.spec.md
    │   └── lab-01-fitness.spec.md   # example themed variant
    ├── projects/
    │   ├── project-1.spec.md
    │   └── project-1.rubric.md
    └── resources/
        └── getting-started.guide.md

Root files are for you and your agent. Everything students see lives in paths/.

Understand the Scaffold

Before generating anything, read these key files (your agent will too):

  • AGENTS.md -- tells the agent how to behave in this repo: conventions, rules, and boundaries
  • course.outcomes.md -- six baseline CS1 outcomes the agent aligns all generated content to
  • course.style-guide.md -- voice, tone, scope, and frontmatter conventions for student-facing content
  • templates/ -- reusable skeletons for labs, projects, rubrics, and student personas
  • students/student-ax7k.persona.md -- a filled example showing how anonymized personas work

The agent uses these files as guardrails. Better scaffolding produces better generated content.

Adapt It With Your Agent

Open the repo in your agent-enabled editor and give it a broad setup prompt:

Read README.md, AGENTS.md, course.outcomes.md, and course.style-guide.md,
then help me adapt this repo for my CS1 course.

The agent will ask you for missing details. At minimum, provide:

  • Your course name or code
  • The programming language (Python is the default)
  • Student population (majors, non-majors, mixed)
  • Any constraints or themes you want to emphasize

From there the agent will update the outcomes, style guide, and initial content. Review what it produces, iterate, and commit.

Build Your First Content

Once the scaffold is adapted, try generating something new:

Generate a themed variant of lab-01.spec.md for students interested in music.
Keep the same programming goals and difficulty. Use the template in templates/template.lab.md.

Or create a student persona:

Create a persona file for a student who is a biology major with no prior coding
experience. Put it in students/ and use an anonymized ID.

Keep all student-facing content in paths/ and link it from paths/index.path.md so it shows up in the knowledge graph.

Next Steps