Practical AI for IT Admins
Faster scripts, clearer docs, and the discipline to not paste the config.
For the people who keep the systems running and are now also expected to have an opinion on AI. This course is practical in the specific sense: what to paste, what never to paste, and how to get the tool to do the boring half of the job (docs, first drafts, explaining someone else's script) while you keep the half that carries the risk.
What it is
Six short lessons, each built around a job that is already on your plate: pasting the wrong thing, reading someone else's script, writing the runbook that never gets written, telling users what is broken, and answering the policy question that keeps landing on your desk. Every lesson has real prompt text you can copy and ends with one thing to do this week, on your own systems, with your own material.
What it is not
It is not a tour of products, and it is not a recommendation to put a model between you and production. Nothing in here runs unattended; you read every line before it executes. It also assumes nothing about your stack — the habits work the same whether you run servers, endpoints, or both.
How to work through it
In order. Lesson 1 draws the boundary every later lesson stays inside, and if you skip it the rest of the course is a way to get yourself in trouble faster. Keep a scratch file open and paste your prompts into it as you go. By the end you will have a redaction script, a set of message templates, a runbook or two, and a policy draft that has already been argued with.
By the end
- you can use AI to draft, explain, and review scripts and configs without handing it anything sensitive
- you can turn a messy ticket thread into documentation, a runbook, or a clear message to users
- you can set up a local or approved tool so the work stays inside your boundary
- you can write the AI acceptable-use guidance your organization keeps asking you for
Lessons
- 01The boundary first
What goes in, what never does, and how to redact a config or a log so you can still get a useful answer.
free · 25 min - 02Scripts and configs
Draft it, explain it, review it — and the reasons you still run it in a test environment first.
subscribers · 25 min - 03From ticket thread to runbook
The documentation that never gets written, written — because it now takes ten minutes instead of an afternoon.
subscribers · 20 min - 04User communication
Outage notices, change announcements, and the how-to nobody reads — made readable, in your voice, in minutes.
subscribers · 20 min - 05Running it locally
When an on-machine model is the right answer, what it costs, and how to stand one up without a project.
subscribers · 30 min - 06The acceptable-use policy you have been asked to write
A one-page policy people can actually follow, drafted, stress-tested, and defensible in the meeting where it gets questioned.
subscribers · 30 min