AI Prompting Tips for the Course Builder

In this article:

• Overview
• Start with a clear brief
• Answer the Agent's questions
• Ground it in your own material
• Reach for a skill instead of repeating yourself
• Review the Storyboard before it builds pages
• Name the page types you want
• Refine rather than restart
• Things to keep in mind
• FAQs
• Who can do this

Overview

The AI Course Builder Agent can turn a rough idea into a finished course, but the quality of what it builds tracks the quality of what you give it. A one-line request gets a generic course; a clear brief, answered questions and a reviewed Storyboard get one that actually fits your audience. This article collects the habits that make the biggest difference to the result.

Start with a clear brief

Give the Agent the same information you'd give a human instructional designer: who the course is for, what it needs to cover, and what "done" looks like. A brief like "Onboarding for new warehouse staff, covering our safety checklist and the first-week schedule, aimed at people who've never worked a shift-based role before" gives the Agent far more to work with than "Make a warehouse onboarding course". The extra detail also means fewer clarifying questions before it can start.

Answer the Agent's questions

When your brief leaves something important open, the Agent pauses and asks before it builds anything. Questions arrive with a short set of likely answers to pick from, plus a Something else option if none of them fit, and you can always click Skip if you'd rather it use its own judgement. Answering properly here is one of the highest-leverage things you can do: getting the audience or the goal right at this stage saves several rounds of "not quite, try again" later.

Ground it in your own material

If the content already exists somewhere, a written policy, a slide deck, a recorded training session, attach it rather than describing it from memory. The Agent reads uploaded documents, reviews images and analyses video transcripts, and can pull in a live web search when it needs current facts or figures it doesn't already have. Say how closely you want it followed: strictly verbatim for anything like a compliance policy where the exact wording matters, or as a looser reference source if you're happy for the Agent to restructure and rewrite.

Reach for a skill instead of repeating yourself

If you find yourself typing the same instructions into every course you build, a skill does it for you instead. Built-in skills cover common jobs, for example keeping every page short enough to read in under 20 seconds, converting a document into course pages while preserving its exact wording, or holding off on generating anything until it's asked you enough questions about your audience and goals. You can also write your own: a short prompt saved once and reused on every course that needs it, which is worth setting up for anything specific to your organisation, a brand voice, a formatting rule, a regulatory requirement that should apply every time.

Review the Storyboard before it builds pages

Before it writes a single page, the Agent drafts a Storyboard: an overview, a set of learning objectives, and a page-by-page outline of what the course will cover. Nothing has been built yet at this point, so this is the cheap place to fix a structural problem. Read it properly. If the order is wrong, an objective is missing, or a topic needs more room than it's been given, say so in the chat and the Agent will revise the outline before it touches a single page. Once you approve the Storyboard, that's when the actual pages get generated.

Name the page types you want

The Agent can build plain text and image pages, but also quizzes, flashcards, and other interactive elements, and it decides what to use unless you tell it otherwise. If you have something specific in mind, say so directly, for example asking for a scenario-based question on a particular page rather than a straightforward multiple choice one, or a flashcard set for a page of terminology instead of a wall of text. Naming the interaction explicitly gets a much more reliable result than describing the effect you want and hoping it picks the right tile.

Refine rather than restart

The first draft rarely needs to be the last version you generate. The Agent stays aware of what you're looking at, so if you're on a specific page, you can ask it to shorten a paragraph, add a knowledge check, or change the tone, and it acts on that page rather than the whole course. Iterating this way, on the actual output, is almost always faster than rewriting your original prompt and generating everything again from scratch.

Things to keep in mind

• Nothing is generated until you approve the Storyboard, so reviewing it properly costs you nothing and saves a rebuild later.
• Opening the Course Builder from the AI Assistant panel starts a blank session. Nothing from that conversation, the topic, the outline, anything you discussed, carries over automatically, so bring the brief with you.
• The Course Builder is switched on per organisation in Settings → Features, and extending access beyond Owners and Admins to Managers may involve a separate licence. Check with Support before widening it if you're not sure whether yours already covers that.
• AI guidelines set for pathways, roadmaps and forms elsewhere in SuperPath do not apply here. Anything you want the Course Builder to follow consistently belongs in a skill instead.

FAQs

Can I skip a clarifying question if I don't know the answer?
Yes. Click Skip and the Agent will proceed using its own judgement and general instructional design practice.

Can I start from an existing document instead of writing a prompt?
Yes. Upload it and choose how closely you want the Agent to follow it, from a strict, wording-preserved conversion through to a looser reference source.

Can I still make changes after the Storyboard is approved?
Yes. Approving the Storyboard only tells the Agent it can start generating pages. You can keep refining individual pages and tiles afterwards the same way you would before approval.

Does answering more clarifying questions slow things down?
It adds a short exchange up front, but it almost always saves time overall, since the alternative is discovering the mismatch after the whole course has been generated.

What if I need the wording to stay exactly as written, for compliance content, for example?
Use a verbatim-style skill, or choose the strict following option when importing a document, so the Agent preserves your original text rather than rewriting it.

Who can do this

Owners, Admins and SuperPath Admins can always use the Course Builder, once it's switched on for your organisation. Managers, People Managers and Content Managers can also use it, but only when Who can use the AI course builder is set to Admins and managers in Settings → Features, and note that extending access this far may carry an additional cost, arranged through Support.

Updated on: 11/09/2026