Learn the concept
Review the Python capstone as another engineer would. Create a fresh environment, follow only the README, and run the sample command and test suite. A project that needs undocumented manual fixes has a reproducibility gap worth resolving.
Explain one use of a collection, one validation boundary, one exception policy, one transaction, and one fake dependency. Show a failure case and the resulting report. You should be able to make a small change, such as adding a required field, without rewriting the whole application.
This is the foundation exit gate for the AI, Agentic AI, and FDE paths. If you can complete it independently, proceed to software and AI foundations. If not, revisit the specific lesson that blocks you rather than marking the entire course complete because you read it.
Run and inspect
review = {"clean_setup": True, "tests": True, "failure_demo": True, "change_explained": True}
assert all(review.values())
Your exercise
Ask a peer to run your project and request one small schema change. Record the questions they ask and improve the README or design where needed.
Check your understanding
You can run, test, explain, debug, and modify the application independently. The checklist values must reflect demonstrated evidence, not simply be set to true.