# AI-Assisted Development Guide

Subject to the applicable license and third-party privacy/security obligations, an organization may use its own developers, IT staff, contractors, editors/IDEs, GitHub, GitHub Gists, OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or other development tools. These tools and providers are independent third parties; Coal Road does not claim affiliation, endorsement, or an included account.

## Protect information

Do not submit privileged, confidential, regulated, protected, or sensitive information, credentials, production records, or customer data to an external tool unless the organization has determined that the specific tool, account, settings, contract, and data use are appropriate. Use fictional sample data for examples. Review the provider's retention and training settings and your own legal and security obligations.

## Reusable starter prompt

> You are assisting with a customer-controlled licensed Coal Road software copy. Before proposing edits, read the product architecture, installation instructions, system requirements, release notes, and applicable license. Inspect the repository and current configuration before editing. Summarize what you found and propose a small reversible change. Preserve firm, agency, office, tenant, and role-access boundaries. Preserve database migrations and existing data relationships. Do not access or alter production systems, credentials, customer data, or live services. Do not deploy without explicit authorization. Avoid destructive operations; make a recoverable branch/copy. Implement only the approved scope, then run relevant tests and report changed files, risks, and test results. Use fictional sample data in tests and examples.

## Review generated changes

An AI agent can produce incorrect code or documentation. A qualified customer reviewer must check permissions, migrations, security, legal obligations, and behavior before accepting a change. Keep a record of prompts and decisions where the organization's process requires it.

This guide does not promise that a coding tool will understand the product or that a change will be correct without review.