How to Adopt CAT as a Team

Use this guide to roll out CAT across a development team — from first install to a shared working agreement.

Prerequisites

At least one person has completed Getting Started individually
Your team has a shared Git repository where CAT will be installed
All team members have membership in the corpay-copilot GitHub organization

Step 1: Install CAT in the Shared Repository

One team member runs the installer in the shared repository. Everyone else pulls the result.

# From the shared repository root
npx --yes @corpay-copilot/ai-dlc-toolkit@latest install

When prompted, configure the shared settings for your team:

Prompt	Team Guidance
ADO organization	Use your team’s shared ADO org
ADO project	Use the project your team’s work items live in
Default author	Leave blank — each person sets this in their local config
Work tracking system	Match what your team actually uses (jira/ado/both)

Commit the resulting _cat/ folder to the repository. All team members pull to get the install.

Step 2: Each Member Runs Auth Setup

Every team member needs to authenticate to the @corpay-copilot GitHub Packages registry. See README Installation for platform-specific instructions.

This is a one-time step per machine, not per repository.

Step 3: Agree on Track Conventions

Before starting work, your team should align on when to use Quick Track vs Full Flow. The Choosing Your Track guide defines the criteria — adapt them to your context:

Example team conventions:

# Our CAT Track Rules

- Bug fixes and 1-day changes → Quick Track
- Any new API endpoint → Quick Track if no new DB schema; Full Flow otherwise
- New services or integrations → Full Flow always
- Compliance-relevant changes (auth, payments, PII) → Full Flow always

Document your team’s rules in your repository wiki or a team README.

Step 4: Agree on Artifact Ownership

Each DLC artifact should have a clear author/owner on your team:

Artifact	Typically Owned By
Intent Statement / Brief	Product Manager or Tech Lead
Features	Product Manager with Dev input
ARC	Tech Lead or Solution Architect
Bolt Specs	Developer assigned to the feature
Bolt Execution reports	Developer who wrote the bolt
Compliance Report	QA or Tech Lead

This doesn’t need to be rigid — the key is that someone is accountable for each artifact before the phase gate.

Step 5: Establish a Readiness Gate Practice

Decide as a team which gates you’ll enforce before phase transitions. For each project or sprint:

Before Architecture starts:   cat-intent-checkpoint (who runs it: _____)
Before Construction starts:   cat-readiness-check   (who runs it: _____)
Before PR merge:              cat-arc-adherence-check (who runs it: _____)
Before release:               cat-compliance-report   (who runs it: _____)

💡 Tip: Run cat-dlc-status in team standups to get a shared view of artifact completion across all active initiatives.

Step 6: Keep CAT Updated

When a new version of CAT is published, update by running the installer again in the shared repository:

npx --yes @corpay-copilot/ai-dlc-toolkit@latest install

The installer detects the existing install and offers a Quick Update that preserves your configuration. Commit and push the updated _cat/ folder.

See Also: Getting Started · Choosing Your Track · DLC Overview