Step 4: Select Your Helper Stack

We use a variety of AI companions and models to help us speed up our workflows. This step introduces you to the AI stack and how to manage it.

🎯 Step Objectives

Configure your AI helper stack.
Understand when to use free vs. paid options (prioritizing Antigravity’s free tier).
Understand the Code Comprehension Rule for your final interview.

Refer to the AI Tools Setup Guidelines for the full tool comparison matrix.

We introduce you to multiple coding assistants:

Antigravity CLI (Primary): We primarily use Antigravity because it offers a highly capable, generous free tier and integrates natively with our development environments.
ChatGPT (Free / Codex): Extremely useful for conceptual questions, formatting, and drafting initial code logic.
Open Code: A great free assistant option for open-source integrations.
Claude Code: A powerful terminal assistant from Anthropic, but not a priority for this challenge because it is paid and can be expensive to run.

As an AI-native engineer, you will write code primarily by prompting AI agents. However:

You must understand every line of code you submit.
AI can draft the code, but you are responsible for its architectural integrity, security, and performance.
In your final technical interview, we will do an oral code walkthrough. You will be asked to explain how your code works and why you made specific architectural choices. If you cannot explain your PR, you will not match.