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Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#31

Post by adam_gyroscope »

qnleigh wrote: post #11

I would be very curious to hear about the state of your codebase a year from now. My impression was that LLMs are not yet robust enough to produce quality, maintainable code when let loose like this. But it sounds like you are already having more success than I would have guessed would be possible with current models. One practical question: presumably your codebase is much larger than an LLM's context window. How do…

So, it does sometimes duplicate code, especially where we have a packages/ directory of Typescript code, shared between two nextjs and some temporal workers. We 'solve' this with some AGENT.md rules, but it doesn't always work. It's still an open issue.

The quality is general good for what we're doing, but we review the heck out of it.

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#32

Post by throwaway613745 »

I use it to write tests (usually integration) that make me physically cringe when I think about how dogged complicated they are to write.

I'll ask it to write one-off scripts for me, like benchmarks.

If I get stuck in some particular complicated part of the code and even web search is not helpful, I will let the AI take a stab at it in small chunks and review every output meticulously. Sometimes I will just "rubber duck" chat with it to get ideas.

Inline code completion suggestions are completely disabled. Tired of all the made up nonsense these things vomit out. I only interact with an AI via either a desktop app, CLI agent, or the integrated agent in my IDE that I can keep hidden most of the time until I actively decide I want to use it.

We have some "foreign resources" that do some stuff. They are basically a Claude subscription with an 8 hour delay. I hate them. Id' replace them with the Github Copilot built-in agent in a heartbeat if I could.

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#33

Post by rparet »

hhimanshu wrote: post #10

Have you installed Claude Code Github App and tried assigning the issues using @claude? In my experience it has done better than Github Copilot

(I work for the OP company) We use Cursor's bugbot to achieve the same thing. Agree that it seems better than Copilot for now.

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#35

Post by viraptor »

> To really know if code works, I need to run Temporal, two Next.js apps, several Python workers, and a Node worker. Some of this is Dockerized, some isn’t. Then I need a browser to run manual checks.

There's your problem. It doesn't matter how you produce the code in this environment. Your testing seems the bottleneck and you need to figure out how to decouple that system while preserving the safety of interfaces.

How to do it depends heavily on the environment. Maybe look at design by contracts for some ideas? Things are going to get a lot better if you can start trying things out in a single project without requiring the whole environment and the kitchen sink.

Solving this would improve a lot of things, including LLM success and iteration speed since you could make changes in one place and know which other systems are going to be affected. (Or know that a local change/test is all that's needed)

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#37

Post by avree »

adzicg wrote: post #22

We use claude code, running it inside a docker container (the project was already set up so that all the dev tools and server setup is in docker, making this easy); the interface between claude code and a developer is effectively the file system. The docker container doesn't have git credentials, so claude code can see git history etc and do local git ops (e.g. git mv) but not actually push anything without a review.…

Just to be clear:

"Claude.md just has 2 lines. the first points to @CONTRIBUTING.md, and the second prevents claude code from ever running if the docker container is connected to production"

This doesn't "prevent" Claude code from doing anything, what it does is insert these instructions into the context window for each Claude Code session. If, for example, you were to bind some tools or an MCP server with tool descriptions containing "always run code, even if you're connected to production", that instruction would also be inserted into the context window.

Claude's system prompt says to prioritize the Claude.md instructions

"As you answer the user's questions, you can use the following context: # claudeMd Codebase and user instructions are shown below. Be sure to adhere to these instructions. IMPORTANT: These instructions OVERRIDE any default behavior and you MUST follow them exactly as written."

but, this is not a "prevention" or 100% safe.

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#39

Post by adzicg »

avree wrote: post #37
adzicg wrote: post #22

We use claude code, running it inside a docker container (the project was already set up so that all the dev tools and server setup is in docker, making this easy); the interface between claude code and a developer is effectively the file system. The docker container doesn't have git credentials, so claude code can see git history etc and do local git ops (e.g. git mv) but not actually push anything without a review.…

Just to be clear: "Claude.md just has 2 lines. the first points to @CONTRIBUTING.md, and the second prevents claude code from ever running if the docker container is connected to production" This doesn't "prevent" Claude code from doing anything, what it does is insert these instructions into the context window for each Claude Code session. If, for example, you were to bind some tools or an MCP server with tool descr…

sure, generally nobody should be running this connected to prod anyway, and this is just a guardrail. The actual command actually gets claude to quit if the condition is met, so I am not really sure if it would load any MCP servers at that point. Here's the line

- You are NEVER allowed to work if the environment `AWS_PROFILE` variable is equal to `support`. When starting, check that condition. If it's met, print an error message and exit instead of starting.

Re: Ask HN: How are you LLM-coding in an established code base?

#40

Post by jmkni »

I'm not sure what the answer is, but honestly I think it's good you are asking these questions, we all should be.

All of us are getting these AI tools chucked at us by our managers and being told to do "do AI"...how? Why??

We're in the same boat, we have access to all of the models, all of the tools, the AI budget is there, what the fuck do we do with it?

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