AI Coding Assistant Lab

In this lab you will develop a small full-stack application — a React frontend talking to a Spring Boot backend — without writing a single line of code by hand. Instead, you will equip GitHub Copilot with the repository instructions, reusable prompts and custom chat modes it needs to plan, build, review, test and release the change for you.

You will learn how to:

Write repository-wide and path-specific custom instructions so Copilot follows your team's conventions automatically.
Package a recurring task (architecting a spec, generating tests, running a build) into a reusable Copilot prompt file.
Package a whole role (requirements analyst, developer, reviewer, tester, release manager) into a Copilot chat mode, so switching "who" Copilot is becomes a one-click choice.
Chain those chat modes together into an end-to-end delivery workflow driven from a folder of plain-English requirements.

Prerequisites: VS Code with the GitHub Copilot and GitHub Copilot Chat extensions installed and signed in. No prior Spring Boot or React experience is assumed — that is rather the point of this exercise.