AI Assistants for Coding

from first prompt to a production-grade PoC

8 weeks Saturdays & Sundays 19:00–21:00 (UTC+1) Live online

Free demo & orientation

Wed, 30 September 2026 · 19:00–21:00

Course runs

3 October – 29 November 2026

+3 days SatSun2 months

What you'll learn

Master your AI pair programmer

Get more from Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT and JetBrains AI inside VS Code and PyCharm
Debug fast by giving the AI the right logs, errors and context

Turn ideas into specs, and specs into working code

Write a clear spec so the AI builds the right thing the first time
Have the AI critique your design before a single line is written

Delegate to AI agents, and stay in control

Hand off multi-file tasks and review the changes before accepting them
Spot when an agent has gone off track, and steer it back

Ship with a safety net

Use Git so any bad AI change can be undone in seconds
Add automated tests and quality checks that run on every push

Lock it down before it goes live

Keep passwords and API keys out of your code and your history
Catch insecure defaults and made-up or unsafe packages that AI can suggest

Keep sensitive code and data private

Run AI assistants on your own machine with Ollama and Continue
Compare local and cloud models on quality, speed, cost and privacy

Let people talk to their data

Turn plain-language questions into safe database queries
Block dangerous queries, cap runtime and limit results

Build real software, not demos

Add login, per-user permissions and an audit trail of every question asked
Manage database changes safely with versioned migrations

Go live, and stay live

Package your app with Docker so it runs the same everywhere
Deploy to a VPS with HTTPS, a firewall and a health check

Build a working PoC in hours

Take the same workflow to a database you have never seen, against the clock
Show an organization a working system, not a slide deck

8 weeks to job-ready AI Assistants for Coding

Week 1 · AI assistants and IDE integration How AI coding assistants work, and what each tool is for, GitHub Copilot: setup, inline suggestions and chat, Continue extension: local and cloud models in VS Code…

Week 2 · Claude, ChatGPT and JetBrains AI Claude's strengths: long context, reasoning and code generation, Current OpenAI and Anthropic models for code generation and debugging, PyCharm AI Assistant and Junie…

Week 3 · Open-source and local assistants, plus security Ollama: running models locally on your machine, Continue with local models (Llama, Mistral, Qwen), Cody by Sourcegraph: context-aware code assistance…

Week 4 · Agentic workflows and automation Agent mode: delegating multi-file tasks and reviewing the changes, Project instruction files that keep AI consistent across a project, Connecting AI to tools and automating repeatable tasks…

Week 5 · Capstone: spec, architecture and data layer Writing the spec with AI and having the AI critique the design, API skeleton, PostgreSQL and Docker Compose, A read-only database role from day one…

Week 6 · Capstone: natural language to SQL Turning plain-language questions into SQL with an LLM, Query validation, timeouts and row limits, Handling ambiguous and unsafe questions…

Week 7 · Capstone: interface, users and observability A web chat interface with tables and simple charts, Login and per-user permissions, Audit logging, error handling and configuration…

Week 8 · Capstone: deploy, harden, document and demo Deploying to a VPS with Docker, HTTPS and a firewall, Backups and rollbacks: automated database backups, a tested restore and a way to undo a bad deploy, Uptime monitoring with an alert when your app goes down…

You'll use

VS CodePyCharmClaudeChatGPTGitHub CopilotContinueCody (Sourcegraph)OllamaGit and GitHubGitHub ActionsDockerPostgreSQLFastAPI