M01-01 · AI-Assisted Software Development

Development Environment, Toolchain, and AI-Assisted Workflows

Teaches students to set up, configure, and maintain a professional software development environment from scratch. Covers IDE configuration, version managers, package managers, containerization, AI coding assistants (Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code), CI/CD pipeline configuration, and scaffolding tools (V0/Bolt.new). Students learn to go from a bare laptop to a fully functioning local dev environment — the critical skill every developer needs on day one of any job.

30 Hours

8 Learning objectives

Create Bloom's ceiling (?)

5 Competencies

What You'll Be Able To Do

Learning Objectives

Objectives

Depth

Configure a complete local development environment: terminal, shell, IDE, version managers (nvm), package managers (npm/yarn/pnpm), SSH keys, and environment variables Apply
Set up and use AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code) with project-specific configuration files (.cursorrules, custom instructions) and evaluate their output critically Apply
Build and modify CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions: automated testing, linting, type-checking, and deployment triggers on merge Apply
Use containerization (Docker) to create reproducible development and deployment environments Apply
Scaffold applications using AI-assisted tools (V0, Bolt.new, Lovable), then evaluate, customize, and integrate generated code into a working project Evaluate
Diagnose and resolve common environment failures: dependency conflicts, wrong runtime versions, missing environment variables, and broken build chains Analyze
Create and maintain developer onboarding documentation: README, .env.example, setup scripts, and architecture overview Create
Evaluate when to accept, modify, or reject AI-generated code suggestions based on project context, team conventions, and code quality standards Evaluate

Levels: Remember · Understand · Apply · Analyze · Evaluate · Create — highest demands most original thinking.

Core Competencies

What You'll Master

Development Environment Setup

Terminal, shell, IDE, version managers, package managers, SSH, environment variable management across local, staging, and production.

AI Coding Assistant Integration

Configuring, prompting, and critically evaluating Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, and scaffolding tools within real development workflows.

CI/CD Pipeline Configuration

GitHub Actions workflows, automated testing, deployment triggers, environment-specific builds.

Containerization & Reproducibility

Docker basics for development environments, reproducible builds, consistent team environments.

Environment Troubleshooting

Diagnosing dependency conflicts, version mismatches, build failures, and platform-specific issues.

Portfolio Artifact

What You'll Build

Development Environment Blueprint — Student sets up a complete development environment from a blank machine, documents every step including failures and fixes, configures AI coding assistants with project-specific rules, builds a CI/CD pipeline with automated tests and deployment, and creates onboarding documentation that a new developer could follow. Includes a comparative evaluation of 2-3 AI coding tools on the same coding tasks.

Tools You'll Use

Industry Tools, Not Toy Projects

VS Code / Cursor

Professional code editors with AI-assisted coding capabilities, extensions, and project configuration.

GitHub Copilot

AI pair programmer that suggests code completions and entire functions based on context and comments.

Claude Code

AI coding assistant for generating, reviewing, and debugging code with project-aware context.

Git & GitHub Actions

Version control and CI/CD automation for testing, linting, and deployment pipelines.

Docker

Containerization platform for creating reproducible development and deployment environments.

V0 / Bolt.new

AI-powered application scaffolding tools for rapid project generation and prototyping.

Terminal / Warp

Command-line interfaces for system configuration, package management, and development workflows.

Vercel

Deployment platform for frontend applications with automatic preview deployments and production hosting.