AI pair programming etiquette for teams

Disclose when it matters

Nobody needs a disclaimer on a one-line fix. But when a PR is largely AI-drafted on unfamiliar territory, say so. Reviewers calibrate scrutiny differently when they know.

A simple PR template checkbox does the job — no ceremony required.

Own the output

'The AI wrote it' is not a defense in code review or in a postmortem. Whoever opened the PR owns the change. If you didn't read it, don't ship it.

Don't paste secrets

• No production credentials in prompts, even for 'just debugging'.
• No customer PII in prompts unless your tool is contractually cleared for it.
• Strip tokens from logs before pasting stack traces.

Protect learning time

Juniors who outsource every problem to an assistant stall. Senior engineers should occasionally pair without the assistant on, especially during onboarding. The skill being built is judgment, not throughput.

Write it down once

A single page in your team handbook covering the above is enough. Revisit it every six months as tools change.