The BotQuarters Blog

Learn to work with
AI agents.

Plain-English guides to AI agents, language models, the companies behind them and the know-how to use them well.

Claude Code vs Codex vs Gemini CLI: Which AI Coding Agent to Use?

Claude Code vs Codex vs Gemini CLI: a fair comparison of strengths, sign-in, open source status, and workflows, plus why mixing them often works best.

6 min read

The Big AI Companies Compared: Who Makes What in AI

AI companies compared in plain English: what Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta and Mistral AI make, and which models and coding tools they offer.

6 min read

What Are Agent Skills? Teaching AI Agents New Tricks

Agent skills are folders of instructions an AI agent loads only when a task needs them. Learn how they work, why they matter, and how to start using them.

6 min read

AI Agents

What AI agents are, how they work, and what they can do for you.

All 5 →

Agentic Workflows Explained: How AI Gets Real Work Done

Agentic workflows explained: how AI agents plan, act, check results, and hand off work, with common patterns, examples, and tips for designing reliable ones.

6 min read

AI Agent Use Cases for Solo Founders and Small Teams

Practical AI agent use cases for solo founders and small teams: building software, testing, docs, research, and operations, plus how to pick your first task.

5 min read

AI Agent vs Chatbot: What's the Real Difference?

AI agent vs chatbot: learn how they differ in autonomy, tools, and memory, when each one is the right choice, and how to tell which one you are using.

6 min read

The Future of Work: People as Managers of AI Teams

The future of work with AI: why more people will manage teams of AI agents, which skills matter most, and how to start practicing that role yourself.

5 min read

What Is an AI Agent? A Plain-English Guide for Everyone

What is an AI agent? A plain-English guide to how AI agents plan, use tools, and finish multi-step tasks, plus where they shine and where they fall short.

7 min read

Coding Agents

Claude Code, Codex, Gemini and friends: picking and using AI coding agents.

All 4 →

AI Coding Agents: The Beginner's Guide to How They Work

A beginner's guide to AI coding agents: what they are, how they differ from autocomplete and chat, the main tools, and how to start using them safely.

5 min read

Claude Code vs Codex vs Gemini CLI: Which AI Coding Agent to Use?

Claude Code vs Codex vs Gemini CLI: a fair comparison of strengths, sign-in, open source status, and workflows, plus why mixing them often works best.

6 min read

Vibe Coding Explained: What It Is, Where It Breaks, How to Do It

Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want to an AI and going with the flow. See where it works, where it breaks, and how to do it well.

5 min read

What Is Claude Code? What It Does and How to Start Using It

What is Claude Code? A plain guide to Anthropic's terminal coding agent: what it does, how it works on your codebase, and how to start using it well.

6 min read

Agent Skills

Skills, SKILL.md and MCP: teaching agents new abilities.

All 4 →

12 Essential Skills for AI Agents on Your Coding Team

Twelve practical skills for AI agents that write code: what each one teaches, why it matters, and how to roll them out across a team of coding agents.

6 min read

How to Write a Great SKILL.md File (With Examples)

A practical guide to writing a SKILL.md file: frontmatter, descriptions that trigger correctly, clear steps, and a complete example you can copy and adapt.

7 min read

What Are Agent Skills? Teaching AI Agents New Tricks

Agent skills are folders of instructions an AI agent loads only when a task needs them. Learn how they work, why they matter, and how to start using them.

6 min read

What Is MCP (Model Context Protocol)? A Simple Explanation

What is MCP? The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that connects AI apps to tools and data. Learn how it works, with plain examples and key terms.

6 min read

Multi-Agent Teams

Teams of agents that plan, split the work and check each other.

All 5 →

AI Agent Orchestration: How a Team Lead Agent Plans and Reviews

How AI agent orchestration works with a team lead agent: turning a goal into tasks, delegating to teammates, running check-ins, reviewing and merging work.

6 min read

AI Agent Transparency: Why Watching Your AI Team Builds Trust

AI agent transparency explained: why seeing what your agents do builds trust, what good visibility looks like, and how to review AI work with confidence.

5 min read

AI Code Review and Testing: Can AI Check Its Own Work?

Can AI check its own work? How AI code review and automated tests work together in AI teams, where self-review falls short, and how to set up a reliable loop.

5 min read

How to Run a One-Person Company with a Team of AI Agents

A practical guide to running a one person company with AI: what agents can take on, how to organize them as a team, and what to keep doing yourself.

5 min read

Multi-Agent Systems: Why One AI Agent Isn't Enough

Multi-agent systems split work across several AI agents with distinct roles. Learn how they work, common patterns, trade-offs, and when one agent is enough.

6 min read

LLM Basics

How large language models work: tokens, context, hallucinations, RAG and more.

All 9 →

AI Hallucination: Why AI Makes Things Up and How to Reduce It

What is an AI hallucination? Learn why language models invent facts, how to spot it, and practical ways to reduce hallucinations in chats and AI agents.

5 min read

How Do LLMs Work? A Simple Explanation Without the Math

How do LLMs work? A plain explanation of tokens, training, attention and next-token prediction, with no math, plus what it means for using AI tools well.

6 min read

LLM Temperature, Top-p and Other Settings Explained Simply

What does LLM temperature do? A simple guide to temperature, top-p, max tokens, stop sequences and system prompts, and which settings to use for each task.

6 min read

Open vs Closed AI Models: Open Source LLMs Explained

Open source LLM or closed model? Learn what open-weight really means, why licenses vary, and the trade-offs in privacy, cost, quality and control.

5 min read

RAG vs Fine-Tuning: Which One Do You Actually Need?

RAG vs fine tuning, explained simply: what each one changes, what it costs in effort, and how to pick the right approach for your AI project.

6 min read

Tokens and Context Windows Explained: A Simple LLM Guide

What is a context window? Learn what tokens are, how LLMs count them, why context limits matter, and practical ways to work within them for better results.

6 min read

AI Companies

Who builds the AI you use: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Mistral and the open model world.

All 7 →

Google DeepMind and Gemini: A Plain-English Overview for Users

Google Gemini explained: what Google DeepMind builds, how the Gemini models, app and Gemini CLI fit together, and where Gemma open models come in.

5 min read

Meta AI and Llama: What Open-Weight Models Mean for You

Meta Llama explained: what Meta's open-weight models are, how they differ from the Meta AI assistant, and how to run Llama yourself in AI agents.

5 min read

Mistral AI Explained: Open-Weight Models from Europe

Mistral AI explained: the Paris-based company behind open-weight and commercial models and the Le Chat assistant, and how to use its models in AI agents.

5 min read

The Big AI Companies Compared: Who Makes What in AI

AI companies compared in plain English: what Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta and Mistral AI make, and which models and coding tools they offer.

6 min read

The Open Model Ecosystem: Hugging Face, Qwen, DeepSeek and More

Open source AI models explained: how Hugging Face, Qwen, DeepSeek, Gemma, Llama and Mistral fit together, and how to run them locally with Ollama.

5 min read

What Is Anthropic? The Company Behind Claude and Claude Code

What is Anthropic? A plain-English guide to the AI safety company behind Claude, Claude Code, MCP and Agent Skills, and what that means for you.

5 min read

Local AI

Running models on your own computer: privacy, cost and speed.

All 2 →

How to Run AI Models Locally with Ollama: A Beginner's Guide

Learn how to run AI models locally with Ollama: install it, pull a model, chat with it, and choose a model size that fits your computer's memory.

6 min read

Local vs Cloud AI Models: Privacy, Cost and Speed Compared

Local vs cloud AI: how on-device and hosted models compare on privacy, cost, speed and quality, and how to decide which tasks belong where.

6 min read

Know-how

Practical tips for getting better, safer results from AI every day.

All 6 →

AI Privacy Guide: How to Share Your Data with AI Safely

AI privacy made practical: what never to paste into a chatbot, how to anonymize documents, which settings to check, and when a local model makes sense.

6 min read

AI Productivity Tips: Everyday Tasks You Can Hand Off to AI

AI productivity tips for real life: everyday writing, summarizing, planning, spreadsheet, and research tasks you can hand off to AI today, with examples.

6 min read

Fact-Check AI: How to Verify AI Output Before You Trust It

How to fact check AI answers, code and summaries: practical checks for sources, numbers and claims, plus how to make AI output easier to verify.

5 min read

How to Learn to Code with AI (Without Skipping the Learning)

Learn to code with AI the right way: use it as a tutor, not an answer machine. Practical prompts, a weekly routine, and habits that build real skill.

6 min read

How to Write AI Prompts: 10 Tips With Before-and-After Examples

How to write AI prompts that get useful answers: 10 practical tips for everyday chats, each with a before-and-after example you can copy and adapt.

6 min read

Which AI Model to Use for Which Job? A Practical Guide

Not sure which AI model to use? Match the model to the task: fast small models, strong reasoning models, or local models, with simple rules of thumb.

5 min read

Guides

Step-by-step guides for getting real work done with AI agents.

All 8 →

AI Agent Glossary: Key Terms Explained Simply for Everyone

An AI agent glossary with over 40 key terms explained simply, from LLMs and tokens to tool use, MCP, agent skills, multi-agent teams, and human in the loop.

6 min read

AI Agent Safety: Permissions, Sandboxes and Staying in Control

AI agent security made practical: how permissions, sandboxes, version control and review keep coding agents useful without risking your machine or data.

6 min read

AI for Non-Programmers: Getting Real Software Built With Agents

AI for non programmers: how AI coding agents let you build real tools and apps without writing code, what to expect, and a step-by-step way to start.

6 min read

How Much Do AI Agents Cost? Keeping Your AI Spend Under Control

AI agent cost explained: what drives token usage, why agents spend more than chatbots, and practical ways to keep your AI spend predictable.

6 min read

How to Build a Website with AI Agents, Step by Step

Build a website with AI agents step by step: plan the pages, write a clear brief, let agents code and test, review the result, and publish with confidence.

6 min read

How to Prompt a Coding Agent: Write a Brief It Can Finish

How to prompt a coding agent: a practical template for briefs with a clear goal, context, constraints, and a finish line the agent can verify itself.

6 min read