All courses / AI Developer / Module 7 / Chapter 30
Learning objectives
After the lesson the participant can:
- Explain the three mechanisms that recur across the six records
- Classify an observed practice as one of the nine anti-patterns and name the stewardship test it fails
- Compare the failure cases with the one success case and say what the success case did differently
- Review a team's estate against the catalogue, marking each answer pass, partial, open or not assessed
Key concepts
- The gate sat inside what it governed
- The first recurring mechanism: a gate or a record that could be altered or bypassed by the thing it was meant to check, as where a release pipeline could be changed by a contributor or a privileged role left no log of its use.
- A name was trusted and not checked
- The second mechanism: a package name suggested by a model reached a published README, a statement that a system could not do a thing was repeated before anyone tested it, and an update arrived from a trusted source.
- A count replaced an outcome
- The third mechanism, for which the successful case is the teacher: the Google migration report chose an outcome measure rather than counting suggestions accepted. The acceptance-rate dashboard is its anti-pattern.
- Anti-pattern catalogue
- Nine entries: acceptance-rate dashboard, unowned agent, generated test that proves nothing, junior hole, review rubber stamp, secret in the prompt, vibe-coded production system, trusted name and open pipeline. Each begins as a step that looked reasonable.
- Anti-pattern check
- One file per review with findings, owners, dates and an expiry. Each answer is marked pass, partial, open or not assessed from the inputs and not from memory, a partial is not rounded up, and an independent reviewer re-runs two answers against the evidence.
Interactive exercises
Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.
Interactive exercise 1 · Match
Anti-patterns and their early signals
Match each anti-pattern to the early signal the catalogue gives for it.
Interactive exercise 2 · Sort
Three mechanisms that recur
Sort each observation from the cases and the catalogue under the recurring mechanism the chapter reads in it.
Teaching plan
| 20 min | Lecture on how the cases were chosen and what was dropped, then the six cases by mechanism, each with the source read and what it does and does not support. |
| 15 min | Group task: for each case, name the function concerned, the test that failed and the control outside the tool that would have limited it, then compare with the chapter's table. |
| 15 min | The teacher walks through the nine anti-patterns, stressing for each the step that looked reasonable and the early signal. |
| 30 min | Exercise: groups review one team's estate against the catalogue, using the Nordvik Region check of February 2031 as a model. |
| 10 min | Each group names one finding it marked not assessed and explains why that is a finding in itself. |
Discussion
- No record supports a conclusion that developers were careless. Why does the chapter insist on this, and how does it change what you look for in a review?
- Two cases readers expect were dropped because no primary record could be opened. What does that discipline cost the chapter, and what does it buy?
- The catalogue is made of failures and has one success case. What would it take for your organisation to write up a success with the same rigour?
Written exercise
Exercise · 30 minutes
Review one team against the anti-pattern catalogue
Fix a scope in one sentence: a team, a product line or a platform, and a period. For each of the nine anti-patterns, write the early-signal question from the catalogue and answer it from records, not from memory: for example, is there a report that counts suggestions accepted and says nothing of delivery, or an agent or repository whose owner has left? Mark each answer pass, partial, open or not assessed, and name the test it fails. For each open or partial finding, assign the control from the catalogue, an owner and a date. Confirm for each agent that none acts at Level 4 on the prohibited work. Name an independent reviewer.
Deliverable: An anti-pattern check with nine answers, marks, failed tests, assigned controls with owners and dates, an independent reviewer and an expiry.
Self-test
Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.
Which stewardship test does the catalogue say the unowned agent fails?
Show the answer
D. Name, because nobody can say who owns it or its permissions
An agent with an identity and permissions whose owner nobody can state fails the Name test. The control is the ownership record together with the mandate that names stop holders.What does the chapter say about the Amazon Q Developer extension case in terms of the tests?
Show the answer
A. Revert held and a gate failed; the control named is a gate contributors cannot alter
The table of what would have prevented the cases records Revert held and the gate failed, with the control being a release gate that contributors cannot alter and a token scoped to the job.Which is the only success case in the chapter, and what does the chapter note about its figures?
Show the answer
C. AI-assisted migration at Google, whose figures are estimates by the people who did the work
Seven Google engineers wrote an experience report, not a controlled study. The figures are their own estimates; the useful part is the reasoning, with a named engineer, owners reading each change and humans reverting what was wrong.