00: Train Your FileMaker AI Agent: Start Here

'That's not a Claude problem. That's a context problem.' ~ my good-self, on stage at Reconnect.

We've all had the Agent hand back a FileMaker function that doesn't exist, then explain, with total confidence, the release that deprecated it. Train Your FileMaker AI Agent is a class that fixes the cause: the context. Ten lessons and a quiz, each building only on the ones before it, from your first Skill to one other Developers can install. This is the place to start.

In this post:

• Who This FileMaker Class Is For

• What You Need for the Class

• One Open Format for Your FileMaker Skills

• The Train Your FileMaker AI Agent Lessons

• How to Work Through the Class

• The Quiz and Certificate

• From the Stage to the Page

Who This FileMaker Class Is For

Experienced FileMaker Developers. You know the platform. You've asked Claude, or another chat assistant, a FileMaker question and got back something that looked right and wasn't.

You don't need to know anything about Skills, plugins or marketplaces. Lesson 01 assumes you've never seen a Skill, and every lesson after it assumes only what the lessons before it taught.

Example: We've all had the Agent return a function like GetContents ( ). Challenge it, and it replies that the function was deprecated in FileMaker 19. It never existed. Every lesson in this class is a way of putting the real answer in front of the Agent first.

What You Need for the Class

Claude Desktop or claude.ai. Lessons 01–03 run in a plain chat.

A Pro account, from lesson 04. The Code tab, where the real coding happens, needs one.

Claris ADT, from lesson 05, if you can get it. Currently a developer preview. The class works without it.

A development copy of a FileMaker file. Never the live one.

One Open Format for Your FileMaker Skills

A harness is the collection of your Skills, your plugins and your context. This class builds yours in Claude Desktop, but the Skills you build aren't locked to it.

They use Agent Skills, an open format Anthropic developed and then released as an open standard. It now has its own home at agentskills.io. A Skill is a folder with a SKILL.md: a name and a description up front, and the rest loads only when the task calls for it. That's what you'll build in lesson 01.

The same Skill works in a growing list of agents: Claude and Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex, Gemini CLI, VS Code, GitHub Copilot and Cursor.

I've been asked whether these Skills work across platforms. The short answer is yes, with one caveat. The format travels, but how you install a Skill differs from one harness to the next, and anything that leans on Claude Code or Claris ADT needs that harness. Lesson 07 shows you how to say where yours runs.

The Train Your FileMaker AI Agent Lessons

Lesson 01 - Build Your First FileMaker Skill. What a Skill is, and one rule of your own written down, uploaded and firing in a chat.

Lesson 02 - FileMaker Reference Skills and Workflow Skills. What the Agent knows versus how it works, why to keep them apart, and three ways to call a Skill.

Lesson 03 - Improve a FileMaker Skill From Real Sessions. The end-of-session review prompt, what belongs in a Skill, and version 1.1.

Lesson 04 - Install FileMaker Skills From a Plugin Marketplace. Chat versus the Code tab, four ways to install, and one copy of every Skill.

Lesson 05 - Claris ADT and Your FileMaker Skills. ADT is the foundation, and your Skills are your layer on top.

Lesson 06 - Test a FileMaker Skill: Evals and Baselines. Evals first, a no-skill baseline, the validator, then three models.

Lesson 07 - Your First FileMaker Skill on GitHub. From no GitHub account to a tested Skill others can install.

Lesson 08 - FileMaker Skills Orchestrator. One Skill to route the rest, and a check that your whole stack is current.

Lesson 09 - Ship Updates to a Published FileMaker Skill. Release archives that install, versions that agree, and keeping published Skills current.

Lesson 10 - FileMaker Skills Quiz and Certificate. Multiple-choice questions drawn from lessons 00–09, with an 80% pass mark.

How to Work Through the Class

In order. Each lesson builds only on what came before it, so skipping ahead means meeting a term the class hasn't taught yet.

Build one Skill as you go. Lesson 01's script-naming Skill learns to ask a question in 02, improves in 03, gets tested in 06 and goes public in 07. By lesson 09 it's a Skill you maintain, not a file you once wrote.

Do the work, not just the reading. Every lesson ends with something to try on your own Skill. One-shot prompting is a fallacy, and so is one-shot reading.

The Quiz and Certificate

Lesson 10 is a multiple-choice quiz drawn at random from lessons 00–09, taken on a free quiz page here on cadenceux.com.au. Enter your name, take the quiz, and score 80% or better to download your certificate.

It's open book. The lessons are the reference, and that's deliberate. It's not about knowing the answers. It's about knowing how to find them.

From the Stage to the Page

This class is the written form of my session, Train Your FileMaker AI Agent, presented at Reconnect in Christchurch. The deck covers the same ground in four stops: what a Skill is, writing your own, structure and the right context, and versioning a library that stays current. The lessons take the time a fifty-minute session can't.

The session closed on four takeaways, and each one has its lesson:

A Skill is context, not magic. Lesson 01.

Start from the official source, then layer your own. Lesson 05.

Build Skills from real sessions. Lesson 03.

Manage and version your Skills. Lessons 08 and 09.

Takeaway

A context problem has a context fix. Start with lesson 01, Build Your First FileMaker Skill, build one Skill as you go, and finish with the quiz.

More to come . . .