Checklist
Everything you need to set up before starting the First Break AI cohort — accounts, tools, and environment verification.
The First Break AI cohort is free and has no formal prerequisites, but you'll move faster if you set up your tools before the first session. This checklist covers accounts to create, software to install, and how to verify everything is working using the AI agent-powered CLI.
Accounts to create
- GitHub — you'll host your Quarto blog and all code here. Create a repo for the cohort.
- Hugging Face — the hub for downloading models, datasets, and running inference. You'll download Qwen3 0.6B from here.
- FBA Discord — where the cohort lives. Office hours, Q&A, peer support, and progress sharing all happen here.
- FetchLens.ai — optional but recommended. See how AI agents interact with your site once you deploy it.
Tools to install
- Git — version control. Install from git-scm.com.
- Python 3 — needed for Hugging Face CLI and training steps. Install from python.org.
- Quarto — static site generator for your blog. Install from quarto.org.
- HuggingFace CLI — download models from the terminal:
pip install huggingface_hub[cli] - Node.js 18+ — needed for the FBA CLI. Install from nodejs.org.
Verify with AI agents
The fastest way to check everything is working: install the First Break AI CLI and run the AI agent-powered environment check:
npm install -g @aiedx/firstbreakai
firstbreakai doctor
The AI agent checks Git, Python, Quarto, HuggingFace CLI, Node.js, and your IDE — and tells you exactly what's missing. Then run firstbreakai validate 0 to verify your Discord login and guild membership.