Skip to content
Chromedia
  • Our Work
  • Blog
Schedule A Call

WHAT WE DO

Engagement Models

Engineering TeamsManaged Software DevelopmentStaff Augmentation

Solutions

Custom Software DevelopmentAI Design & ImplementationAgentic AI DevelopmentAI IntegrationMobile App DevelopmentMVP DevelopmentLegacy Application ModernizationAPI Development

Services

AI ConsultingBackend EngineeringFrontend EngineeringiOS & Android App DevelopmentUI/UX DesignQuality EngineeringDevOps and Cloud Engineering

WHY CHROMEDIA

AI Development ProcessTop Talent Hiring ProcessStaff Augmentation

DISCOVER

Our WorkWho We AreBlogsContact UsCareers
Chromedia

© 1996 - 2026 Chromedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

production v30.1.5
Privacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of Use

Why Chromedia›AI Development Process

AI Speed. Human Accountability. At Every Stage.

Every feature Chromedia delivers moves through a governed 8-phase human-led AI SDLC with architecture controls, security gates, testing, peer review, and engineering-lead approval before a single line reaches production.

See How We Build
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix
Cruisebound
Spoke Health
One Foot Productions
Portland Pedal Power
Styleteq
Fluid Gifts
iFlipd
MEDtrip
Hatch
Cambium Networks
MRIoA
EagleScreen
Geolens
Valid Eval
Capametrix

This Is Not Vibe Coding.

AI has changed what is possible in software development. Teams can move faster, explore more solutions, and automate more of the repetitive work that used to consume senior engineering time. That is genuinely valuable, and Chromedia uses it deliberately.

What AI cannot do is govern itself. It cannot make architecture decisions, validate business logic, assess security risk, or take accountability for what it produces. Those responsibilities belong to engineers, and at Chromedia they always will.

Our 8-phase AI SDLC is built around that principle. AI accelerates the work at every phase. Senior engineers govern every output before it advances. The result is software that is faster to deliver, better documented, more secure, and built to last, without the technical debt, security gaps, and architectural drift that ungoverned AI-assisted development consistently produces.

Phases

Phase 01

Define and Design

Human-led product design, AI-accelerated discovery

Before a single line of code is written, we work with you to define exactly what needs to be built, why it matters, and how it should perform in the real world.

This phase combines product management, AI-assisted requirements refinement, and UI/UX design to reduce ambiguity early, surface hidden risks, and produce a build-ready roadmap that engineering can execute against with confidence. AI helps accelerate analysis and improve completeness. All product, workflow, and user experience decisions are human-led.

  • Refines requirements and surfaces edge cases
  • Expands acceptance criteria for better QA readiness
  • Suggests missing user stories and workflows
  • Identifies ambiguity, dependency, and scope risk
  • Strengthens handoff quality before development begins

  • Define user stories, workflows, and business logic
  • Establish system scope, priorities, and technical constraints
  • Align requirements with stakeholders and end users
  • Own product direction and customer experience decisions
  • Validate feasibility against business outcomes

  • Product requirements and user stories
  • UX wireframes or high-fidelity design concepts
  • Acceptance criteria and workflow logic
  • Technical scope definition
  • Delivery roadmap for engineering execution

Phase 02

Task Breakdown

AI-ready engineering tasks built for speed, reviewability, and quality

Once product requirements are defined, features are decomposed into small independently implementable units of work. User stories become clear, testable engineering tasks that are structured for AI-assisted development and human validation from the start.

Decomposing features before any code or prompts are written reduces ambiguity, improves sprint predictability, and dramatically increases development velocity. Every task is structured around three quality criteria before it is picked up for implementation.

  • Promptable — small enough to describe clearly in a single AI prompt
  • Reviewable — output can be fully understood and validated by one developer
  • Testable — includes explicit pass/fail acceptance criteria

  • Generates task breakdowns from approved user stories
  • Suggests API endpoint structures and component boundaries
  • Recommends frontend and backend task separation
  • Identifies hidden dependencies and sequencing risks
  • Highlights reusable logic and shared service opportunities

  • Review and validate every AI-generated task breakdown
  • Adjust scope, sequencing, and sprint priorities
  • Align dependencies to technical architecture decisions
  • Create project management tickets with story linkage and acceptance mapping
  • Ensure tasks align with release goals and stakeholder expectations

  • Sprint-ready engineering tasks
  • User story linkage and traceability
  • API and component task maps
  • Dependency and sequencing plan
  • Backlog ready for implementation

Phase 03

AI-Augmented Development

Human-owned engineering, AI-accelerated velocity

This is the core development phase where approved tasks become working software. Developers use AI as a deliberate accelerator at the component, function, and endpoint level, enabling faster feature delivery without sacrificing engineering accountability.

Every prompt is intentionally scoped. Every output is reviewed line by line. Only code that is fully understood is committed.

The AI Implementation Loop

break the requirement into a focused implementation objective

a tightly scoped instruction for a single function, component, or endpoint

output is produced for immediate engineering review

the engineer validates logic, edge cases, standards, and maintainability

only approved, fully understood code moves forward

  • Generates code for defined functions, components, and API endpoints
  • Suggests refactoring opportunities for cleaner architecture
  • Assists with debugging, stack traces, and root-cause analysis
  • Produces initial test scaffolding and documentation drafts
  • Accelerates repetitive implementation tasks without losing quality

  • Write and refine focused prompts for each task
  • Review all AI-generated code line by line
  • Make architecture, business logic, and data-flow decisions
  • Validate performance, maintainability, and security implications
  • Commit only code that is fully understood and owned

  • Production-ready feature code
  • Human-reviewed components and endpoints
  • Initial automated test coverage
  • Refactored and optimized code paths
  • Commit-ready pull requests for validation

Phase 04

Human Validation

Mandatory human review before any AI-generated code moves forward

Every line of AI-generated code must pass a human validation gate before it can advance to pull request, QA, or release. This checkpoint is non-negotiable. No feature progresses until a qualified engineer confirms the output aligns with the approved architecture, satisfies acceptance criteria, and adheres to Chromedia's engineering standards.

This is how we combine AI speed with enterprise-grade software governance.

  • Verify architecture alignment with the approved system design
  • Confirm logic correctness against acceptance criteria
  • Validate edge cases, data handling, and workflow behavior
  • Check code quality against Chromedia engineering standards
  • Ensure readability, maintainability, and future extensibility
  • Apply the AI Code Review Checklist before raising any pull request

  • Human-validated implementation output
  • Standards-compliant code ready for pull request
  • AI review checklist sign-off
  • Maintainability confirmation
  • Risk-reduced release readiness

  • Logic drift from the original requirements
  • Misaligned implementation patterns
  • Hidden technical debt
  • Fragile abstractions or over-engineering
  • Inconsistent code standards
  • Security and permission oversights

Phase 05

Security and Compliance Review

Automated quality and security gates on every merge request

Every merge request passes through an automated layer of quality, security, and compliance controls before code can be merged. This phase applies continuous validation across linting, dependency vulnerability scanning, secret detection, static analysis, and container scanning where applicable.

AI assists with operationalizing security review faster and supports remediation identification, but human engineers triage and approve every finding before merging.

  • Generates CI/CD pipeline configurations
  • Fixes linter warnings and style inconsistencies
  • Suggests remediation paths for security findings
  • Accelerates repetitive refactoring tied to scan results
  • Assists in hardening pipeline rules and validation checks

  • Triage and resolve all findings before merge
  • Validate severity and business impact of flagged issues
  • Never suppress warnings without full root-cause understanding
  • Manually review SAST, dependency, and secret scan findings
  • Approve only secure, standards-compliant code for release

  • CI/CD quality gate configuration
  • Automated linting and security scans
  • Dependency vulnerability checks
  • Secret and SAST validation layers
  • Merge-ready secure pull requests

  • Insecure dependency packages
  • Exposed secrets and credentials
  • Style drift and code inconsistency
  • Common OWASP vulnerability patterns
  • Container image vulnerabilities
  • Maintainability regressions

Phase 06

Testing

Human-verified test coverage for reliable AI-assisted software delivery

Every feature delivered through our process requires unit testing at minimum, with integration and end-to-end validation added for multi-system workflows and customer-facing experiences.

AI accelerates test creation, edge-case discovery, and fixture generation. All tests are reviewed and approved by human engineers and QA specialists before pull request sign-off.

  • Generates unit test scaffolding from function signatures
  • Suggests edge cases, boundary conditions, and failure paths
  • Produces realistic test data and mock fixtures
  • Recommends missing assertions and negative test cases
  • Helps identify coverage gaps before pull request review

  • Review all AI-generated tests for correctness
  • Ensure tests validate real behavior, not just code execution
  • Define manual validation scenarios tied to acceptance criteria
  • Confirm integration paths across services and data layers
  • Sign off on test coverage before every pull request

  • Unit and integration test coverage
  • Human-reviewed test assertions
  • QA manual validation scenarios
  • Mock fixtures and reusable test data
  • Pull request test sign-off documentation

  • False-positive test coverage
  • Untested edge cases
  • Integration regressions
  • Broken user-facing flows
  • Invalid mock assumptions
  • Fragile multi-service workflows

Phase 07

Code Review

Mandatory human peer review before every merge

Before any feature is merged, it must pass a human peer review checkpoint. Every pull request receives a second layer of engineering scrutiny focused on logic correctness, architectural alignment, testing quality, and long-term maintainability.

AI-assisted review is encouraged as a first-pass accelerator, but human reviewer approval is always required before merge.

  • Identifies potential bugs, edge-case gaps, and fragile logic
  • Suggests readability and maintainability improvements
  • Flags potential security concerns for human investigation
  • Highlights duplicated logic and refactor opportunities
  • Surfaces missing assertions or weak test coverage areas

  • Complete the AI Code Review Checklist
  • Review logic correctness and architecture alignment
  • Verify test quality and coverage sufficiency
  • Validate naming conventions, readability, and maintainability
  • Approve or request changes in writing before merge

  • Human-reviewed pull request approval
  • Written review comments and decision trail
  • Architecture alignment validation
  • Test quality sign-off
  • Merge-ready code with reviewer accountability

  • Hidden logic defects
  • Architectural drift
  • Weak test assertions
  • Readability and maintainability issues
  • Inconsistent engineering standards
  • Overlooked security concerns

Phase 08

Final Approval and Release

Every gate clears before code enters the main branch

A feature is only eligible for merge when every engineering, testing, security, and governance gate has been fully cleared. Developers and engineering leads confirm the feature is fully understood, production-ready, and safe to release before any code enters the main branch.

This is how AI-assisted development becomes a human-controlled production release system.

  • Requirements fully implemented
  • Acceptance criteria satisfied
  • Tests passed and reviewed
  • Security and linting gates cleared
  • Peer review completed and documented
  • No known regressions
  • Team maintainability confirmed
  • Documentation updated where required

  • Confirm all checklist items are complete
  • Validate CI pipeline success across linting, testing, and security scans
  • Ensure human peer review approval is documented
  • Confirm no regressions have been introduced
  • Verify code is maintainable and understood by the broader team
  • Approve merge only when the definition of done is fully satisfied

  • Final merge approval sign-off
  • Definition of done validation
  • CI gate completion record
  • Regression-free release candidate
  • Production-ready maintainable code

Why This Process Matters

Consistency is what makes AI-accelerated delivery trustworthy.

Every engagement Chromedia delivers runs on this process. The eight phases apply to projects of all sizes and timeline pressures. They are the standard that governs how AI tooling is introduced, validated, and released across every codebase we are responsible for.

That consistency is what separates governed AI development from AI generation that reaches production without the oversight that enterprise software demands. It is what allows us to move fast without introducing the technical debt, security gaps, and architectural inconsistencies that ungoverned AI-assisted development consistently produces.

When you partner with Chromedia, you are getting a team that uses AI correctly. You are getting a team where AI is a precision tool within a governed process, and every output is owned by an engineer who understands it and is accountable for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Built to Deliver. Built to Last.

If you are looking for a development team that combines genuine AI fluency with the engineering discipline to govern it, we would like to show you what that looks like in practice.

Talk to Us About Your Project