Lessons  /  Companion to 06

How to read a demo

The question is which object moved. A list coming back is not the same as a ticket issuing.

Someone puts a laptop on the table and shows an assistant that “uses your calendar” or “handles travel.” The useful question is which object changed, not how the transcript sounds.

Did a PDF get read? That is retrieval. A document entered the window. Nothing on the calendar moved.

Did a live list of Tuesday flights come back? That is a read-only tool call. A function ran somewhere else and returned rows. No booking has happened yet.

Did a confirmation number appear in mail? That is a write. Money, inventory, or a record changed. Undoing it is operations, not refresh.

Ask: can the tool names be seen? Which of those write? Is there a confirm step on anything that spends money or sends mail? If the demo cannot answer, the room is being shown a transcript, not the system.

A careful demo is often read-only on purpose. That is so the look-up can be inspected before a write is enabled.

This sits under Lesson 06: It looked up the flight. It booked the flight. The same distinction, for a room that is watching a screen instead of reading a lesson.