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Defra AI in the SDLC Playbook

This playbook is a living document that aims to provide guidance on best practices for ways of working, tooling, and context-specific use cases for the use of AI in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) tailored to Defra's unique needs and challenges.

Getting Started

This section explains the core concepts of working with AI tools.

Important: Use only AI tools from the Allowed Tools for Defra Pilot list.

Important: Enable privacy settings to protect government data. Privacy settings stop your code and data being stored on AI providers’ servers. They also prevent your data being used to train AI models.

For information on the appropriate privacy settings for your chosen AI tool, see the Defra Tools Guidance

What you’ll learn

  1. Workflow - How the AI development workflow works
  2. The Four Pillars - The foundations of consistent code generation
  3. Mindset - How to work effectively with AI
  4. Project Setup - Set up your project with the right files, tools, and conventions

Next -> Workflow

Support links

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated