Course SYS 103 · Units: 3.0 · Credential: HCAISE
Hanzo AI Systems Engineering Foundation
The definitive engineering standard for production AI. Master the 4-surface parity, finite-state Kai decision loops, hybrid retrieval, and strict integer micro-USD budget governance.
Academic specificationsSYS 103 · 3.0 UNITS
Duration3 Weeks · Comprehensive
LEVELIntermediate
CredentialHCAISE
Credential formatW3C Verifiable Credential
Lead Faculty & Academic Direction
Marcus BrodyDirector of Developer Platform, Hanzo
PrerequisitesBasic command line fluency and experience consuming REST APIs
Tuition & compute rebateOpen enrollment
Total tuition
+$38 CREDITS (25% REBATE)$149USD
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Automatic 25% Compute Credit Rebate
25% of tuition (rounded up) is immediately deposited into your Hanzo Cloud compute balance on day one. Fully subsidizes your gVisor sandbox container leases and model inference throughout the course.Already purchased?Enter Enrolled Student Portal →
Competency Framework
What you master in SYS 103
Engineered for software practitioners building resilient autonomous production systems.
Unified 4-surface API (CLI, SDKs, HTTP, MCP)
Finite-state Kai decision loops with 0 output tokens
Hybrid retrieval (knowledge, graph, search)
Integer micro-USD nested budget governance
Comprehensive Syllabus
Curriculum & Laboratory Breakdown
Every module combines systems architecture lectures with hands-on containerized lab defense.
SYS 103.1The 4-Surface Architecture & Zero-Copy Protocol
Week 1Key Topics & Lectures:
Architecting for 4-surface parity: CLI, Python/TS SDKs, REST HTTP, and Model Context Protocol
Token streaming protocols: Server-Sent Events, WebSockets, and binary gRPC channels
Connection pooling and resilient retry jitter strategies
Assigned Readings:
Hanzo Platform Architecture Whitepaper: The 4-Surface Contract
Lab 1: Build a tool that executes synchronously across CLI and MCP socket simultaneously.
SYS 103.2Kai Decision Heuristics & Zero-Token Logic
Week 2Key Topics & Lectures:
Why generative classification fails at scale: cost, latency, and indeterminacy
Kai zero-token logit scoring across structured choice schemas
Integrating Kai decision trees inside multi-tier agent pipelines
Assigned Readings:
Hanzo AI: Kai Technical Report — Deterministic State Transitions without Output Tokens
Lab 2: Replace 3 LLM classification steps with Kai checkpoints, reducing latency by 85%.
SYS 103.3Budget Envelopes, Circuit Breakers & Capstone Service
Week 3Key Topics & Lectures:
Pre-invocation budget checks with micro-USD precision
Circuit breakers and graceful service degradation under load
Capstone presentation and HCAISE credential verification
Assigned Readings:
Google SRE: Site Reliability Engineering: Managing Cascading Failures
Capstone Project: Deliver a sub-50ms AI microservice that handles 500 RPS without budget overruns.
Final Examination
Capstone Defense & Credential Issuance
Ship a high-concurrency 4-surface AI service with sub-50ms latency and strict budget ceilings. Upon automated grading verification, your HCAISE W3C Verifiable Credential is cryptographically signed and issued to your Hanzo DID.
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