This session is designed to give participants practical, end-to-end experience using the foundational tools of modern software and cloud engineering: Git, GitHub, VS Code, and an integrated AI development assistant. The purpose is to remove the intimidation barrier often associated with development workflows and demonstrate how anyone, from IT pros to cloud operators to students, can begin create code, automate tasks, and adopt development best practices. Attendees will walk away with the ability to confidently use Git for version control, collaborate through GitHub, leverage VS Code as their primary development environment, and understand where AI-based coding assistance accelerates productivity while maintaining governance and quality.

The overarching goal is to empower participants with the practical, job-relevant skills that form the baseline of modern DevOps, cloud automation, and GitOps practices.

This session introduces participants to practical developer workflows using Git, GitHub, VS Code, and an AI coding assistant. Attendees will learn how to create a repository, branch effectively, commit and push changes, resolve merge conflicts, and use the AI agent to generate, refactor, and explain code. The session also covers integrated development workflows in VS Code, enabling participants to confidently navigate source control, interact with GitHub, and deploy code artifacts. By the end, learners will have built their first end-to-end GitOps-style workflow and walk away capable of applying these skills in real cloud and DevOps environments.