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Write prompts that get the answer first time, at the smallest footprint that does the job.
Eight modules on the Prompt Footprint and the Five Levers: specification, structure, reasoning depth, model selection and orchestration. They apply to the prompts you write yourself and to the agents that run without you.
8h 30m
8
50 question
85%
Certification
Green AI Prompting for Self & Agents
How the course works
Five levers, applied in order
Specification, structure, reasoning depth, model selection and orchestration, each with the question to ask and the evidence to check.
For your own prompts and for agents
The same levers applied to what you write and to what runs autonomously, which behave differently at scale.
Grounded in SCI for AI
Footprint figures follow the ratified specification, with method and boundary stated.
What this course helps with
Understand what a prompt actually costs
A prompt is authored once and runs on every request. The first module accounts for that across cost, carbon, energy, water and embodied hardware.
Get the answer first time
Vague requests are corrected, and every correction resends the whole conversation for a fresh answer. Specification is the lever that removes most of that work.
Keep agents inside a budget
Autonomous work multiplies calls and carried context. Budgets and stop conditions put a bound on the worst case.
Who this is for
- Developers and software engineers working with AI features
- Prompt engineers and AI product managers
- ML engineers and architects designing AI features
- Anyone whose prompts run at production volume
- Recommended first: LFC131 Green Software for Practitioners (not required)
Related courses:
For the training side of models rather than their use, see Green AI for ML Practitioners; for putting this guidance into coding tools, see Building a Green AI Agent.
What you will work with
The Prompt Footprint
Five dimensions of a single prompt, and what changes when it runs a million times.
The five levers
Each with its GSF framework, a backwards audit for prompts already running, and the quality bar it must hold.
Procurement and disclosure
What to ask an AI supplier, and how to report your own figures without overstating them.
What you will be able to do
Course Lessons
The full course
01
Why Water, and Why You
Software feels dry, but the buildings it runs in use water for cooling, the electricity it consumes was made using water, and the hardware was manufactured with it. This module shows those three connections and closes the gap between the people who can see the water and the people who change the software.
module-01
02
The Four Layers: building, electricity, hardware, and the stress conversion
This module gives the three ways software uses water their proper names, as the draft SWI specification uses them, and adds a fourth layer that converts litres into how much each litre matters. It ends with the only line of arithmetic in the course.
module-02
03
Consumption and Withdrawal: used up vs borrowed
Water figures come in two kinds, and confusing them is the most common mistake in reading them. This module teaches the distinction between water used up and water borrowed and returned, and the rule that the two are never added together.
module-03
04
Reading a Water Number
This module teaches no calculations. It teaches how to look at any water figure, whether a provider report, a news headline or a colleague’s slide, and know what it does and does not say.
module-04
05
Stress-Adjusted Water: a liter is not a liter
The same liter counts for more where water is scarce and for less where it is plentiful. This module turns that idea into arithmetic using a published factor per place, giving the conversion layer its full treatment at foundation depth.
module-05
06
Small Things That Save Water
The earlier modules built a vocabulary; this one turns it into actions small enough to take this week, organised by role. None of them needs a water meter, a budget or permission to run a project.
module-06
07
Final Assessment
A final assessment of 12 questions - 80% to pass, 30 minutes, retake available.
Final Assessment
Assessment & Certification
Time to complete