Can you pre-check wordpress categories?

There is nothing directly meant for that (that I can think of), but there is very close in purpose function get_default_post_to_edit().

Since for the purpose of new post creation it makes post appear in DB before it is even saved for the first time (as auto draft) we can tinker with its filters a bit to make it happen:

add_filter( 'default_content', function ( $content, $post ) {

    if ( ! is_admin() ) {
        return $content;
    }

    $screen = get_current_screen();

    if ( 'post' === $screen->base && 'add' === $screen->action && 'code-project' === $screen->post_type ) {
        wp_set_object_terms( $post->ID, 'plugin', 'code-project-type' );
    }

    return $content;
}, 10, 2 );