💭 in your head · nothing to type
Picture your AI situation right now — budget, hardware, country, corporate restrictions.
Don't picture it as a "technical tool choice." Picture it as a mountain with two routes: the cable car and the hiking trail. Only you know what's in your pack, how much daylight is left, whether you need the summit today or just the panorama.
Run it in your head: which route feels like yours? Where is your "cable car" (fast, paid, convenient) — and where is your "trail" (slower, autonomous, yours)?
Which route fits your pack today?
💭 in your head · nothing to type
Your five answers aren't a preferences table. They're a tasting note 🍷.
Picture a sommelier lifting a glass. Not by the label, but by the nose, the finish, the acidity — by what's actually in the glass. Do the same: notice what's really in your situation: money, hardware, geography, privacy paranoia.
Return to the mountain route. The cable car and trail are not universal answers; they match the stack to what your pack can carry.
Which item in your pack matters most for the choice?
Five questions guide the choice: budget, access, hardware, privacy, and setup tolerance. With $20+ and minimal setup, Claude Code fits; with hardware and autonomy, Sovereign; without hardware and on a small budget, Cloud-OSS; in China or Russia without a VPN, Behind-Firewall.
This course was originally built around Claude Code — a strong, convenient tool. But it:
claude.ai and the Anthropic API. Unavailable in China without a VPN; in Russia, Anthropic doesn't work at all