The workshop session

One hour, two researchers, one inherited repository. You and your partner take over a small research note from a previous collaborator, do one task each with your agents, decide on each other’s work, and then read what the repository recorded.

A separate session

The workshop is a separate session for its participants, built on TRACE-OS and run with an invitation to a prepared repository. You do not need it to use TRACE-OS: on your own, start with Get started.

The setting

You and your partner have inherited a repository from a previous collaborator. It holds a brief for a short note, a yearly table, a first calculation, a first background paragraph, the skeleton of the note, and a trace record for every commit. Some of that inherited work is right and some of it is not. Finding out which is part of the hour.

The research question is small and descriptive:

What share of patents in the selected sample are classified as non-publication cases, and how does it vary by filing year?

You work as A or B. A works out the numbers, and B writes the background paragraph with its citations. Each of you uses your own agent in VS Code, and each of you decides on the other’s work.

The hour at a glance

The letters name the five governing principles: track records (T), review against sources (R), accept independently (A), control transitions (C) and evaluate corrections (E).

Minutes	What you do	Principles
0 to 10	Write one sentence each in a shared note, commit it, and see your partner’s arrive.	T
10 to 30	Give your agent your task in your own words, read its draft trace record, and say finalize.	T, R
30 to 45	Read your partner’s work and say your decision: accept, return or refuse. Move a draft into the shared manuscript, paper/.	T, A, C
45 to 60	Ask for the repository’s own account of the hour, letter by letter and commit by commit.	All five

Nothing in the hour is blocked. Unreviewed work is pushed and stays visibly unreviewed, and the decisions you say are recorded in your name.

Before the dayThirty minutes of setup: GitHub, Git, VS Code, Python and one coding agent.

The hourThe four blocks, step by step, with what to say to your agent and what to ask it.

After the hour: six parts

Six further parts stand on their own, in any order. They are the take-home after the workshop, and each one opens with what you do and which principle it exercises.

Part	What you do	Principles	Needs
A	A model reviews your partner’s work: advisory model review, beside your own decision.	R, A	OpenRouter key for the second model
B	Your agent finds a citation in your Zotero library, and an intake record says where it came from and what was checked.	C, R	Zotero, OpenRouter key
C	One claim in your partner’s work is audited against the evidence.	R	Nothing extra
D	A LaTeX page is built from a copy of the starter, leaving the shared manuscript, paper/, untouched.	C	TeX
E	The manuscript goes to Overleaf, and an edit there comes back.	T, C	Overleaf with Git integration
F	One fault goes through the defect ledger: raised, fixed, and given a targeted recheck.	E	Nothing extra

Note

The workshop needs no knowledge of Git commands or of TRACE-OS’s own commands. Every step is something you click in VS Code or say to your agent.