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Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

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Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#61

Post by trcf21 »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #55
trcf21 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From flow.py Ensure the tone is welcoming and easy for a newcomer to understand{tone_note}. - Output only the Markdown content for this chapter. Now, directly provide a super beginner-friendly Markdown output (DON'T need ```markdown``` tags) So just a change here might do the trick if you’re interested. But I wonder how Gemini would manage different levels. From my take (mostly edtech and not in English) it’s really…

This has given me decent success: "Write simple, rigorous statements, starting from first principles, and making sure to take things to their logical conclusion. Write in straightforward prose, no bullet points and summaries. Avoid truisms and overly high-level statements. (Optionally) Assume that the reader {now put your original prompt whatever you had e.g 5 yo}" Sometimes I write a few more lines with the same mea…

Thanks I’ll try that!

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#62

Post by afro88 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #60

You didn't "build an AI". It's more like you wrote a prompt. I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code.

> You didn't "build an AI".

True

> It's more like you wrote a prompt.

False

> I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code.

False.

This: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/tree/main/browser...

Became this: https://the-pocket.github.io/Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge/Bro...

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#63

Post by throwaway290 »

afro88 wrote: post #62
throwaway290 wrote: post #60

You didn't "build an AI". It's more like you wrote a prompt. I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code.

> You didn't "build an AI". True > It's more like you wrote a prompt. False > I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code. False. This: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/tree/main/browser... Became this: https://the-pocket.github.io/Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge/Bro...

That's good, though there's tons of docstrings. In my experience LLM completely make no sense from undocumented code.

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#64

Post by quantumHazer »

afro88 wrote: post #62
throwaway290 wrote: post #60

You didn't "build an AI". It's more like you wrote a prompt. I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code.

> You didn't "build an AI". True > It's more like you wrote a prompt. False > I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code. False. This: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/tree/main/browser... Became this: https://the-pocket.github.io/Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge/Bro...

The example you made has, in fact, a documentation

https://docs.browser-use.com/introduction

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#65

Post by nxobject »

codetrotter wrote: post #17
zh2408 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their site seems to be down. I can't find their results.

Were they acquired? Or did they give up and the CEO found work at Google? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42542512 The latter is what this thread claims ^

It sounds like it'd be perfect for Google's NotebookLM portfolio -- at least if they wanted to scale it up.

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#66

Post by saberience »

I hate this language: "built an AI", did you train a new model to do this? Or are you in fact calling ChatGPT 4o, or Sonnet 3.7 with some specific prompts?

If you trained a model from scratch to do this I would say you "built an AI", but if you're just calling existing models in a loop then you didn't build an AI. You just wrote some prompts and loops and did some RAG. Which isn't building an AI and isn't particularly novel.

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#68

Post by afro88 »

quantumHazer wrote: post #64
afro88 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You didn't "build an AI". True > It's more like you wrote a prompt. False > I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code. False. This: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/tree/main/browser... Became this: https://the-pocket.github.io/Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge/Bro...

The example you made has, in fact, a documentation https://docs.browser-use.com/introduction

You don't point this tool at the documentation though. You point it at a repo.

Granted, this example (and others) have plenty of inline documentation. And, public documentation is likely in the training data for LLMs.

But, this is more than just a prompt. The tool generates really nicely structured and readable tutorials that let you understand codebases at a conceptual level easier than reading docstrings and code.

Even if it's only useful for public repos with documentation, that's still useful, and flippant dismissals are counterproductive.

I am keen to try this with one of my own (private, badly documented) codebases and see how it fares. I've actually found LLMs quite useful at explaining code, so I have high hopes.

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#69

Post by afro88 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #63
afro88 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You didn't "build an AI". True > It's more like you wrote a prompt. False > I wonder why all examples are from projects with great docs already so it doesn't even need to read the actual code. False. This: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/tree/main/browser... Became this: https://the-pocket.github.io/Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge/Bro...

That's good, though there's tons of docstrings. In my experience LLM completely make no sense from undocumented code.

Fair, there are tons of docstrings. I have had the opposite experience with LLMs explaining code, so I am biased towards assuming this works. I'm keen to try it and see.

Re: Show HN: I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials

#70

Post by throwup238 »

achierius wrote: post #41
zh2408 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux repository has ~50M tokens, which goes beyond the 1M token limit for Gemini 2.5 Pro. I think there are two paths forward: (1) decompose the repository into smaller parts (e.g., kernel, shell, file system, etc.), or (2) wait for larger-context models with a 50M+ input limit.

Some huge percentage of that is just drivers. The kernel is likely what would be of interest to someone in this regard; moreover, much of that is architecture specific. IIRC the x86 kernel is <1M lines, though probably not <1M tokens.

The AMDGPU driver alone is 5 million lines - out of about 37 million lines total. Over 10% of the codebase is a driver for a single vendor, although most of it is auto generated per-product headers.
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