A step-by-step guide to self-hosting a validated AI coding assistant using NVIDIA infrastructure in regulated or source-sensitive environments. The setup uses StarCoder2-7B served as a NIM container on your own GPUs, with NeMo Guardrails acting as a policy proxy to block requests for human-only code paths (auth, payments, crypto). A CI verification gate using GitHub Actions catches hallucinated package names (slopsquatting), secret leaks, and license drift before review. Git commit trailers provide traceability for AI-assisted changes, and a Prometheus/Grafana metrics loop tracks defect escape rates and rollback frequency to inform policy tightening. The architecture is intentionally modular so teams can adopt each layer incrementally and swap models without rewriting the validation pipeline.
