AI Skills for Web Developers

Course Overview

AI Skills for Web Developers is a 61-minute theory-based course designed to teach web developers how to effectively integrate AI into their development workflow. It focuses on reusable thinking patterns such as prompting, context engineering, debugging, code review, testing, and security rather than specific tools or languages. The course uses a running case study of an e-commerce platform to illustrate real-world AI-assisted development challenges and solutions.

Key Takeaways

• Understand how AI changes daily web development without removing developer accountability.
• Identify development tasks suitable for AI assistance and triage them by clarity, reviewability, reversibility, and consequence.
• Build technical prompts using the Developer Prompt Framework: Task, Context, Constraints, Expected Result, and Validation.
• Apply context engineering to supply the minimal necessary facts that influence AI responses.
• Use AI for code understanding, solution design, and architectural comparison before code generation.
• Implement a structured debugging loop with ranked hypotheses instead of quick fixes.
• Review AI-generated code systematically using the CLEAR framework: Correctness, Logic, Edge Cases, Architecture, and Risk.
• Detect hallucinated packages, APIs, and configurations before they enter the codebase.
• Address security, privacy, prompt injection, and agent permission risks in AI-assisted development.
• Adopt the SMART AI Developer Workflow: Scope, Map, Ask, Review, Test for repeatable AI-assisted work.

Prerequisites

• No prior AI experience or paid AI subscriptions are required.
• No specific coding environment, repository, or exercises are necessary.
• General familiarity with website, API, or web application development is helpful but not essential.

Target Learners

• Web developers including PHP, JavaScript, front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers.
• Junior developers building professional habits.
• Freelancers managing client and production risks independently.
• Experienced engineers seeking a structured team approach to AI-assisted development.
• Tech leads setting AI usage standards for development teams.
• Developers responsible for reviewing AI-generated pull requests.