Learn to Build Apps, Automations, and Real-World Workflows Using OpenAI Codex Before Everyone Does!
AI coding assistants are changing how people build software, automate work, and turn ideas into usable digital products. You no longer need to write every line of code manually to create useful apps, internal tools, scripts, dashboards, automations, and prototypes.
In this 7-hour hands-on bootcamp, Chuck M. teaches engineers, technical professionals, and ambitious non-technical builders how to use an AI coding assistant as a practical building partner. Instead of learning isolated prompts, participants will work through 10 practical AI-assisted workflows inside a realistic starter project.
Learners will use an AI coding assistant to understand an existing project, turn an idea or user story into an implementation plan, create simple tests or validation checks, build focused feature slices, debug issues, review generated changes, refactor safely, document work, and prepare a final handoff.
This bootcamp is designed for people who want to move beyond casual AI experimentation and start using AI coding tools to build useful real-world outputs in a structured, safe, and repeatable way.
What You’ll Build and Practice
Across 10 hands-on workflows, participants will learn how to:
- Set up a safe AI-assisted development workflow
- Use an AI coding assistant to understand an unfamiliar project
- Turn an idea, requirement, or user story into a practical build plan
- Create simple tests, checks, or acceptance criteria before implementation
- Build a focused app feature or automation workflow
- Debug a failing feature, script, or workflow issue
- Extend a feature with clear guardrails
- Review and correct AI-generated code or instructions
- Refactor and clean up safely without breaking behavior
- Create a final project handoff summary and complete a capstone workflow
Key Learning Outcomes
By the end of the bootcamp, learners will be able to:
- Use an AI coding assistant as a building partner, not just a chatbot
- Turn ideas into structured development tasks
- Guide AI tools with clear prompts, constraints, examples, and checkpoints
- Build small apps, scripts, workflows, or prototypes with more confidence
- Use tests, acceptance criteria, and manual checks to verify AI-generated work
- Debug problems using evidence from errors, logs, and expected behavior
- Review AI-generated output instead of blindly accepting it
- Create reusable AI-assisted workflows for repeated tasks
- Prepare project notes, documentation, and handoff summaries
- Apply practical guardrails for safe and responsible AI-assisted building
Who It’s For
This bootcamp is designed for:
- Builders who are comfortable reading code and want a structured path into agentic development
- Developers who want to use Codex effectively in everyday coding work
- Technical leads introducing Codex or AI-assisted coding practices to a team
- Teams moving from casual AI experimentation to repeatable Codex workflows
- Engineers who want practical guardrails for reviewing and accepting AI-generated changes
This workshop is best suited for people who can read and lightly modify code. Advanced attendees will benefit from the workflow, review, and adoption patterns; newer attendees will benefit from the guided project, checkpoints, and instructor-led walkthroughs.
Before You Start
Participants should have:
- Basic comfort using a code editor and terminal
- Familiarity with Python programming language
- Access to OpenAI Codex
- Basic familiarity with Git workflows
Participants do not need AI, machine learning, or model-training experience.
Lineup
Chuck McCullough
Good to know
Highlights
- 7 hours
- Online
Refund Policy
Location
Online event
Agenda
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Hour 1: Codex Foundations and Workflow
In this opening session, you'll learn what Codex is, where it fits in the modern development workflow, and why developers remain responsible for design, testing, and final decisions. We’ll explore agentic development as a guided loop, ask, inspect, decide, test, implement, verify, and review and discuss how tests and small design choices help steer AI-assisted coding. You'll also examine the risks of non-deterministic AI output and practical strategies for managing them. Through a hands-on exercise, you'll set up your Codex environment, complete your first guided coding task, learn how to evaluate and refine Codex-generated work, and create a personal checklist for responsible AI-assisted development.
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Hour 2: Environment, Repo Orientation, and First Prompts
Participants will begin by confirming the prepared development environment and starter project, then use Codex to inspect the repository before making any changes. Through guided prompt patterns, they will practice context gathering, constraint identification, architecture discovery, and effective clarification techniques. Using Codex, participants will identify key files, understand data flows, locate likely change points, and document potential risk areas, while learning how to avoid vague prompts that lead to broad or unsafe edits. By the end of the session, each participant will produce a concise repository map, identify file responsibilities and risks, and create a reusable repository-orientation prompt for future projects.
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Hour 3: User Story, Architecture Choices, and Test Design
In these hands-on projects, participants will learn how to translate a realistic user story into a scoped technical implementation plan. Using Codex, they will break down requirements, identify assumptions and constraints, map data flow, propose simple classes and methods, make lightweight architecture decisions, and determine which files are likely to change. Participants will then take a test-first approach by designing and refining unit tests that define expected behavior before implementation, documenting edge cases, creating a clear implementation checklist, and using lightweight prototypes where needed to validate workflows and clarify requirements.