🏫 The School — hard things, explained like you're five

Nine courses, one method: every concept as a school-analogy story, every lesson on its own git branch with a numbered box-and-arrow diagram, every claim backed by something you can run — including four repos that ship real, zero-dependency code (a language model, an MCP server & client, an agent, a vector database).

9courses
107lesson branches
90+numbered diagrams
4runnable codebases
156dictionary terms
0magic left
🎓 The Program — the whole School as one prospectus
Curriculum, tracks with durations, tools covered, honest outcomes, FAQ and the certificate — all nine courses presented like a bootcamp brochure, minus the bootcamp bill → read the Program
📖 The Dictionary — every term, its analogy, its lesson
156 terms from all nine schools on one searchable page: type "OOMKilled", "lunchbox" or "hall pass" and jump straight to the diagram that teaches it → open the Dictionary

🧭 Two tracks, one universe

Same analogies everywhere — desks, lunchboxes, hall passes, gates — so knowledge transfers between courses. Pick a track, or interleave.

☁️ The Ops track — pack it, run it, ship it
0️⃣ AWS foundations (IAM, EC2 & the campus) → 1️⃣ Docker & ECR → 2️⃣ Kubernetes (the flagship: 26 lessons) → 3️⃣ ArgoCD & GitOps
🧠 The AI track — how it works, then how to build with it
1️⃣ AI (tokens → diffusion) → 2️⃣ Vector Databases → 3️⃣ MCP → 4️⃣ AI Agents

🎓 The nine schools

🪪 AWS — IAM, EC2 & the campus

The foundations, then the whole campus: identity (ID cards, hats), rented desks — and VPC, S3, load balancers, DNS, RDS, CloudWatch, Lambda, the bill. Labs ~1¢/hour.
20 lessons · 3 parts · campus map 4K · study plan · trade-offs
SiteDiagramsStudy planTrade-offsRepo

🍱 Docker & ECR

Pack it (images, layers, compose, multi-stage) and ship it (registries, ECR). Real demo app + working multi-stage build in the repo.
12 lessons · 2 parts · big-picture 4K · trade-offs
SiteDiagramsTrade-offsRepo

☸️ Kubernetes — the flagship

26 lessons: pods to control plane, GitOps, multi-AZ, then Part 3 "running it for real" — debugging, RBAC, upgrades, observability. Real manifests, real school platform.
26 lessons · 3 parts · study plan · AWS map · trade-offs · short link: /k8s
SiteDiagramsStudy planTrade-offsRepo

🤖 ArgoCD & GitOps

Deployment with and without ArgoCD: feel the drift problem, then meet the caretaker robot. Deployable demo app + Application manifest included.
12 lessons · 2 parts · big-picture 4K · trade-offs
SiteDiagramsTrade-offsRepo

🧠 AI — tokens to agents

How models work (tokens, embeddings, attention, RLHF & LoRA) and how to use them (prompting, RAG, agents, diffusion, MCP). Three runnable zero-dep Python labs.
13 lessons · study plan · trade-offs · companion video decoded
SiteDiagramsStudy planTrade-offsRepo

🗺️ Vector Databases

The library sorted by meaning: embeddings, cosine, HNSW, chunking, RAG — with a real ~70-line vector DB in the repo (and one honest failure that explains everything).
8 lessons · runnable mini-DB · landscape page · big-picture 4K
SiteDiagramsLandscapeRepo

🔌 MCP — the universal plug

The Model Context Protocol with the protocol IN the repo: a real server and client (~200 lines), the wire message-by-message, 5 use cases with sequence diagrams.
8 lessons · runnable server+client · use-cases page · big-picture 4K
SiteDiagramsUse casesRepo

📋 AI Agents

Answers vs outcomes: the think→act→observe loop, tools, guardrails, failure modes — with a real runnable agent (drive it yourself!), 5 patterns, and the history & future of "agentic".
8 lessons · runnable agent · patterns page · history & future page
SitePatternsHistory & futureRepo

🔗 /k8s — the short link

A tiny redirect repo: baluraut.github.io/k8s → the Kubernetes course, deep links preserved. Share the short one.
1 redirect · the smallest school 😄
Try itRepo

📊 What every school ships (the cross-review)

SchoolLessonsRunnable codeLesson diagramsBig-picture 4KTrade-offsStudy planQuizShowcase page
🪪 AWS20Terraform + CLI labs✅ 20✅ + campus map✅✅ 6 weeks✅ 12 Qs✅ campus map
🍱 Docker12app + compose✅ 12✅✅✅ 4 weeks✅ 8 Qs—
☸️ Kubernetes26manifests + terraform✅ 26✅ AWS map + 11×4K✅✅ 9 weeks✅ 10 Qs✅ AWS components map
🤖 ArgoCD12deployable app✅ 12✅✅✅ 4 weeks✅ 8 Qs—
🧠 AI13✅ 3 Python labs✅ 13✅✅ (incl. MCP)✅ 4 weeks✅ 10 Qs—
🗺️ VectorDB8✅ mini vector DB✅ 8✅≈ landscape✅ 3 weeks✅ 8 Qs✅ landscape
🔌 MCP8✅ server + client✅ 8✅→ in AI school✅ 3 weeks✅ 8 Qs✅ 5 use cases
📋 Agents8✅ runnable agent✅ 8✅≈ history page✅ 3 weeks✅ 10 Qs✅ patterns + history

All pages across all sites verified live at portal build time. Every course now has its own weekly study plan and an end-of-course quiz — plus every term lives in the 📖 Dictionary.

🗓️ The grand path — all nine schools, in order

Tick a school when you finish it — progress saved in this browser. Steady pace: one school every 2–4 weeks (Kubernetes: 9 — it has its own weekly plan, as does AI).

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— ID cards, desks & the campus everything stands on (20 lessons)
— pack the lunchbox, rent the bank locker
— the flagship: 26 lessons, its own 9-week plan
— the caretaker robot; deploys become boring (the goal)
— five ideas, zero magic; its own 4-week plan
— the meaning hall; RAG's machine room
— the universal plug; read the actual wire
— the capstone: everything above, in one loop 🎓