AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 8 min read
When a small business gets busy, the usual move is to hire, or to sign up for six AI tools in a week and use none properly. Both feel like progress. The first is a slow, expensive bet on a job you haven't defined; the second is a collection, not a capability.
The rule: run one tool on one real job for one week before you pay anyone, and know in advance where the free plan stops.
Prices are rough conversions from the vendor's currency, exclude VAT and are correct at time of writing.
| Tool | What it does for you | Free tier | When it starts costing | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Git + GitHub | An undo button for every file your AI assistant touches | Unlimited public and private repositories | Team plan about £3 per user a month | You still need something to run the commands; GitHub Copilot Free covers light use |
| Astro + Vercel | A fast static website without a site-builder subscription | Astro is open source; Vercel Hobby is free | Vercel Pro about £15 per developer seat a month | Vercel Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use only |
| Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) | Reads one person's body of work and answers only from it | 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook on the free tier | Paid Google AI plans raise the caps | Answers are only as good as the sources you load |
| A chat assistant with file upload (Claude or ChatGPT) | Finds patterns in a spreadsheet of posts that already worked | File upload is on free plans with daily limits | Paid plans lift the limits | Free Claude reads CSV directly; Excel files may need converting to CSV first |
| n8n (self-hosted) | Drafts replies to repeat support emails for you to approve | Community edition is free to self-host | n8n Cloud Starter from about £17 a month, billed annually | Self-hosted only runs while your machine or server is on |
When an AI assistant edits your site, it will eventually break something that worked yesterday. Git keeps a snapshot of every working version; GitHub's free plan includes unlimited private repositories.
To run the commands, GitHub Copilot Free includes chat and agent mode in editors such as VS Code, with monthly limits; Claude Code works too if you already pay for it. Open the project folder and paste:
You are setting up version control for a small business project. I am not a developer, so explain each step in one plain sentence before you run it.
Project folder: [FOLDER_NAME]
GitHub account: [GITHUB_USERNAME]
1. Initialise Git in this folder and add a sensible .gitignore so passwords, API keys and .env files are never committed.
2. Make the first commit with the message "first working version".
3. Create a new PRIVATE repository on my GitHub account called [REPO_NAME] and push to it. If you cannot create it yourself, give me the exact clicks on github.com and wait.
4. From now on, after any change I confirm works, commit it with a short message describing what changed.
If you are missing access, a login or a name, stop and ask rather than guessing. Before finishing, list any file you deliberately left out of the repository and why.
Fill in your folder name, GitHub username and a repository name.
Astro is a free, open-source framework for quick-loading pages. Start with npm create astro@latest (Astro asks for Node.js v22.12.0 or newer; odd-numbered versions such as v23 are not supported). Push it to GitHub, import the repository in Vercel, and every commit redeploys the site.
The trap: Vercel's Hobby plan is restricted to non-commercial, personal use. A business website is commercial, so either budget for Vercel Pro (about £15 per developer seat a month at time of writing) or check the current terms of another static host before you launch.
Act as a careful web developer building a small brochure site in Astro for a non-technical owner.
Business: [BUSINESS_NAME] — [ONE_LINE_DESCRIPTION]
Pages: [LIST_PAGES, e.g. home, about, services, contact]
Look: [DESCRIBE_THE_STYLE or PASTE_A_URL_YOU_LIKE]
Hosting: [VERCEL_PRO / OTHER_HOST]
1. Create the Astro project and the pages listed, with clearly marked placeholder copy I can edit.
2. Keep it fast: no heavy JavaScript libraries, compressed images, one font at most.
3. Commit to my existing GitHub repository.
4. Give me numbered steps to connect that repository to my host.
Ask me for anything missing instead of inventing business details, prices or testimonials. Before you finish, check every page builds without errors and tell me the command you used to check.
Fill in your business details, pages, style and chosen host.
The product you may know as NotebookLM became Gemini Notebook on 16 July 2026, and the address is still notebooklm.google. Gather everything a mentor or specialist has published, such as talks, articles and transcripts, and add it to a notebook as sources (the free tier allows 50 per notebook). You can then put questions to it and insist that every answer comes from that material, with citations back to where it was found.
Use only the sources in this notebook. If the sources do not cover something, say so rather than filling the gap.
My situation: [DESCRIBE_YOUR_SITUATION_IN_3_SENTENCES]
1. List the three ideas this author returns to most often, each with the source it comes from.
2. Based on those ideas, what would they most likely have me do first this week? Mark this as inference, not quotation.
3. Point out any place where the author contradicts an earlier position or changes their mind, with both sources.
Format: three short headed sections, citations inline. Check that every claim has a citation before you answer.
Fill in your situation; load the sources first.
Export the best-performing posts in your niche from the last month into a CSV and upload it to Claude or ChatGPT. Both allow uploads on free plans with daily limits at time of writing; on free Claude, convert Excel files to CSV first.
You are a content analyst. The attached CSV lists high-performing posts in my niche over [TIME_PERIOD], with columns [LIST_COLUMNS].
1. Take the top 20 by [METRIC] and group them by the type of opening line (question, number, contrarian claim, story, and so on). Give one real example per group from the data.
2. List the topics that recur most, with a count for each.
3. Write five opening lines for my next posts about [MY_TOPIC] that follow the strongest group. Match this sample of my writing: [PASTE_200_WORDS_OF_YOUR_WRITING].
Use only the data in the file; if a column is missing or the numbers look wrong, tell me before analysing. Before answering, confirm your counts add up.
Fill in the time period, column names, metric, topic and a writing sample.
n8n's official one-line setup needs Docker installed and running:
curl -fsSL https://get.n8n.io | sh
It then serves n8n at http://localhost:5678. From n8n 3.0 (launching October 2026), the old npx n8n route is deprecated in favour of this Docker method. On a self-hosted instance, connecting Gmail means creating your own OAuth app in Google Cloud Console; the one-click Google sign-in is only on n8n Cloud.
You are an n8n workflow designer helping a beginner. Design a support workflow, then tell me exactly which nodes to add and what to type in each field.
Inbox: [SUPPORT_EMAIL_ADDRESS]
FAQ source: [LINK_OR_PASTED_FAQ]
AI model credential I have: [e.g. OPENAI / ANTHROPIC / NONE]
Required behaviour:
- Start with a Gmail Trigger on Message Received.
- Compare the email with the FAQ. If it is clearly answered there, create a Gmail draft (Draft > Create) in my tone, replying in the same thread.
- If it is not clearly answered, add a label called "Needs me" and create no draft.
- Nothing is ever sent automatically.
If I lack a credential you need, say what to set up before continuing. Finish with a three-email test plan covering an FAQ question, a non-FAQ question and a spam message.
Fill in your inbox, FAQ and which AI credential you have.
Pick the job you do by hand most often this month. Editing anything with AI: Git first, as everything else is safer with an undo. Site is the bottleneck: Astro. Learning a field: Gemini Notebook. Stuck on what to make: the spreadsheet prompt. Inbox eats your mornings: n8n, once your FAQ is written down.