AI learning guide

Best official AI provider docs and model catalogs

Start with primary-source documentation when learning current models, APIs, agents, MCP, and provider-specific tradeoffs.

Best OpenAI docs to bookmark: OpenAI model guide. Official OpenAI guide to current GPT, reasoning, coding, and tool-capable models. Use it when model names, reasoning levels, and API behavior matter.

Best OpenAI learning hub: OpenAI Academy. Official OpenAI Academy hub for guided courses and skills. Use it when you want a more structured OpenAI learning path than raw API docs alone.

Best Claude learning hub: Anthropic Academy. Official Anthropic hub for AI fluency, Claude Code, MCP, and Claude courses. Use it to move from one-off Claude docs pages into a broader official learning path.

Best Gemini model reference: Gemini API models. Official Google AI for Developers model documentation. Use it to compare Gemini context, modality, and release channels.

Best open-model catalog: Hugging Face model hub. Hugging Face's live catalog for open checkpoints, datasets, and demos. Use it to see what open models are actually available, not just which ones were announced.

Best DeepSeek migration source: DeepSeek models and pricing. Official DeepSeek pricing and model page. Use it to verify live model names, pricing, and alias migrations before building around DeepSeek.

Best routed-catalog reference: OpenRouter models guide. OpenRouter's cross-provider model directory. Use it when you want one place to compare current provider availability across model families.

Primary sources matter most when models move fast

Model names, aliases, context windows, pricing, tool support, and recommended usage can change quickly. Official docs and model catalogs are the first place to check before relying on a course, tweet, or old benchmark.

Bookmark the model catalog and release notes for every provider your work depends on. As of Saturday, September 5, 2026, the highest-priority model changes remain OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra launch and migration guidance, Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.1 model and prompting guides, and Google's GA Gemini 3.8 Flash page plus its Lyria 3.5 preview documentation. New practical learning references now cover Astra mid-turn steering, Codex Record & Replay, Codex lifecycle hooks, WebMCP site tools, and Hugging Face's open-source funes memory layer for coding agents. Keep the broader source set close too: Meta's Model API and Llama docs; Mistral's models, Agentic Search, and OCR guides; Cohere's model and retrieval docs plus its open Agentic Task Ecosystem research; DeepSeek's V4 pricing, vision, Responses, and Codex pages; Qwen's model and coding-agent docs; xAI's Grok model and Build release streams; Perplexity's Search, Agent, embeddings, eval, and MCP docs; Hugging Face's model, agent, retrieval, and course hubs; and OpenRouter's catalog, routing, eval, benchmark, and agent documentation. Secondary summaries are useful for discovery, but check the primary source before migrating or teaching a workflow.

Use catalogs to narrow the test set

A model catalog should not make the final decision for you. It should narrow the candidates by modality, context, tool support, speed, price, hosting route, and data constraints.

Once the list is short, test the models on your own prompts and workflows. That is the only way to know whether a model is right for your coding agent, RAG system, product feature, or research assistant.

Recommended courses and resources

  1. The AI Engineer Roadmap

    Free tutorial · Matt Pocock · Beginner to intermediate

    You want a guided path through core AI concepts, model selection, the AI engineering mindset, evals, and techniques for improving LLM-powered apps.

  2. Model Context Protocol Tutorial

    Free tutorial · Matt Pocock · Intermediate

    You want to understand MCP and build TypeScript MCP servers over stdio or HTTP, connect Claude Code to tools, use MCP prompts, and package servers for distribution.

  3. AI Coding Dictionary

    Dictionary · Matt Pocock · Beginner to intermediate

    You want plain-English definitions for agentic coding concepts such as context windows, tools, MCP, handoffs, skills, subagents, feedback loops, and agent-ready work.

  4. MCP: Build Rich-Context AI Apps with Anthropic

    Short course · DeepLearning.AI · Intermediate

    You want a hands-on MCP course for connecting tools, context, and Claude-powered apps.

  5. Hugging Face MCP Course

    Free course · Hugging Face · Beginner to intermediate

    You want a free structured MCP path with concepts, assignments, SDKs, and a certificate route.

Roll a learning mission

Pick one small move from this guide instead of opening ten tabs.

Open mission

About this guide

Author: Learnetto Editorial Team. Learnetto maintains this AI learning directory by organizing public course pages, official documentation, educator material, and practical learning resources.

How it is made: Learnetto uses public course pages, official documentation, educator material, and directory data to compile these recommendations. AI may help draft and organize the page, but recommendations are checked against the listed sources, page topic, and learner intent.

Review policy: We only add a named personal reviewer when that person has substantially reviewed the page. Until then, the page is attributed to Learnetto rather than a founder, editor, or individual expert.

Last updated: September 5, 2026. Suggest a correction if a course, doc, or recommendation is outdated.

Videos to watch

Google's AI endgame is here... everything you missed at I/O 2026 video thumbnail ►

Google's AI endgame is here... everything you missed at I/O 2026

Fireship

How to Build for AI Agents and a Claude Code Second Brain in 25 Min | Ryan Wiggins video thumbnail ►

How to Build for AI Agents and a Claude Code Second Brain in 25 Min | Ryan Wiggins

Peter Yang

The last six months in LLMs in five minutes video thumbnail ►

The last six months in LLMs in five minutes

Simon Willison

Educators and sources

Educator / source Best for Skills Start with
Simon Willison profile photo
Developers, technical generalists LLM tools, Prompting, AI safety, Local models, Model selection Read the recent model-roundup posts, then try the llm command-line tool with two or three different providers.
Matt Pocock profile photo
Developers and self-directed learners building with AI coding agents AI coding, Claude Skills, Agentic workflows, AI SDK, MCP, LLM fundamentals, Personalized learning Use LLM Fundamentals or the AI Engineer Roadmap if you need concepts, the Vercel AI SDK Tutorial or AI SDK v6 Crash Course if you want to build apps, and the AI Skills catalog if you want practical agent workflows like /teach, /grill-me, /tdd, and /triage.
Matthew Berman profile photo
Builders, founders, AI-curious operators, developer-adjacent learners AI agents, Open-source AI, Vibe coding, MCP, AI workflows Start with the OpenClaw guide or a Forward Future University lesson, then use the newsletter to follow adjacent tools only after you ship one example.
Mervin Praison profile photo
Developers learning agent frameworks, multi-agent systems, and open-source AI tooling AI agents, Multi-agent workflows, MCP, RAG, Open source Start with the main repo and one video tutorial, then run a minimal local example before reaching for larger multi-agent setups.

Resources

The AI Engineer Roadmap

Free tutorial · Matt Pocock · Beginner to intermediate

You want a guided path through core AI concepts, model selection, the AI engineering mindset, evals, and techniques for improving LLM-powered apps.

Model Context Protocol Tutorial

Free tutorial · Matt Pocock · Intermediate

You want to understand MCP and build TypeScript MCP servers over stdio or HTTP, connect Claude Code to tools, use MCP prompts, and package servers for distribution.

AI Coding Dictionary

Dictionary · Matt Pocock · Beginner to intermediate

You want plain-English definitions for agentic coding concepts such as context windows, tools, MCP, handoffs, skills, subagents, feedback loops, and agent-ready work.

Hugging Face MCP Course

Free course · Hugging Face · Beginner to intermediate

You want a free structured MCP path with concepts, assignments, SDKs, and a certificate route.

OpenAI Codex hooks

Coding agent guide · OpenAI · Intermediate to advanced

You need lifecycle hooks that run scripts or MCP tools around Codex sessions, prompts, tool calls, compaction, subagents, permissions, validation, logging, or persistent-memory workflows.

OpenAI Site tools with WebMCP

Web agent guide · OpenAI · Intermediate

You want a website to expose predefined actions directly to ChatGPT Work or Codex in the built-in browser, using the same live page and signed-in session as the user.

Qwen Code September 3 weekly update

Coding agent release notes · Qwen · Beginner to advanced

You want Qwen's September 3, 2026 practical guide to its latest coding-agent workflows, including learning-oriented output styles, scheduled tasks, a browser terminal, safer workspace writes, skills, MCP stability, and current vision-model support.

Anthropic Model Hardware Standard preview

Agent interoperability standard · Anthropic · Intermediate to advanced

You want Anthropic's August 27, 2026 research preview of a model-agnostic standard for connecting agents to lab and manufacturing hardware through programmable interfaces and protocols such as MCP, with safety evaluation built into the rollout.

GPT-6 Astra launch overview

Model launch · OpenAI · Intermediate to advanced

You want OpenAI's September 3, 2026 launch overview for GPT-6 Astra, including its rollout, computer-use and coding focus, long-context behavior, benchmark disclosures, pricing, and new Codex context-retrieval workflow.

Gemini 3.8 Flash

Model docs · Google AI for Developers · Intermediate

You need Google's official September 2, 2026 GA reference for its newest Flash model, including the stable model ID, 1M-token input window, thinking levels, multimodal inputs, tools, and production inference options.

Lyria 3.5 music generation

Model docs · Google AI for Developers · Beginner to intermediate

You want Google's September 3, 2026 preview documentation and examples for generating short clips or full songs from text and image inputs with the Lyria 3.5 Clip and Pro models.

Automation's Early Footprint

Open research and dataset · Cohere · Intermediate

You want an evidence-based map of what public agent tools actually automate, built from Cohere's September 3, 2026 open Agentic Task Ecosystem dataset of roughly 696,000 tools across 123,000 MCP servers.

Simon Willison on GPT-6 Astra

Model analysis · Simon Willison · Intermediate to advanced

You want a concise independent read of GPT-6 Astra's launch claims, benchmark caveats, long-context results, pricing, and early comparison with Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-5.6 Sol.

Claude Fable 5.1 model overview

Model docs · Anthropic · Intermediate to advanced

You need Anthropic's September 1, 2026 source of truth for Claude Fable 5.1 and invite-only Mythos 5.1, including model IDs, pricing, availability, long-horizon agent strengths, and breaking changes from Fable 5.