The 101-level ground floor: what AI-assisted coding actually is, the concepts it will introduce you to, which tools to use (and under which account), and what data can safely go anywhere near a prompt.

Brand new to all of this? The Explorer welcome guide walks this same material in a gentler order.

What is AI-assisted coding?

From autocomplete to collaborator — what actually changed, the four classic ways it goes sideways, and what stays your job no matter what.

Concepts you'll bump into

Repos, branches, environments, dependencies, APIs, deployment — each in plain English, with why AI coding makes you meet it.

Choosing your tools & accounts

Where we're agnostic (editor, language, model) and where we're not (accounts, assessment tiers, what gets installed).

Popular tools & setups at ND

The honest map: the standard stack, the on-request options, bring-your-own harnesses, and how the rest of the ecosystem fits.

What data is safe to use?

Notre Dame's four data sensitivity levels, applied to prompts, code, and test data — including the places sensitive data likes to hide.