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If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

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Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#61

Post by sillysaurusx »

dang wrote: post #51

I floated that idea a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096202 , although I used the word "prompts" which users pointed out was obsolete. "Session" seems better for now. The objections I heard, which seemed solid, are (1) there's no single input to the AI (i.e. no single session or prompt) from which such a project is generated, (2) the back-and-forth between human and AI isn't exactly like working wit…

Unfortunately Codex doesn’t seem to be able to export the entire session as markdown, otherwise I’d suggest encouraging people to include that in their Show HNs. It’s kind of nuts that it’s so difficult to export what’s now a part of the engineering process.

I don’t have anything against vibe coded apps, but what makes them interesting is to see the vibe coding session and all the false starts along the way. You learn with them as they explore the problem space.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#62

Post by sunir »

rfw300 wrote: post #14

Why should it be? The agent session is a messy intermediate output, not an artifact that should be part of the final product. If the "why" of a code change is important, have your agent write a commit message or a documentation file that is polished and intended for consumption.

In my case I have set up the agent is the repo. The repo texts compose the agent’s memory. Changes to the repo require the agent to approve.

Repos also message each other and coordinate plans and changes with each other and make feature requests which the repo agent then manages.

So I keep the agents’ semantically compressed memories as part of the repo as well as the original transcripts because often they lose coherence and reviewing every user submitted prompt realigns the specs and stories and requirements.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#63

Post by esperent »

dang wrote: post #51

I floated that idea a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096202 , although I used the word "prompts" which users pointed out was obsolete. "Session" seems better for now. The objections I heard, which seemed solid, are (1) there's no single input to the AI (i.e. no single session or prompt) from which such a project is generated, (2) the back-and-forth between human and AI isn't exactly like working wit…

> the resulting artifact would be so noisy and complicated that saving it as part of the project wouldn't really add that much value.

This is the major blocker for me. However, there might be value in saving a summary - basically the same as what you would get from taking meeting notes and then summarizing the important points.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#64

Post by dang »

acedTrex wrote: post #58
dang wrote: post #51

I floated that idea a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096202 , although I used the word "prompts" which users pointed out was obsolete. "Session" seems better for now. The objections I heard, which seemed solid, are (1) there's no single input to the AI (i.e. no single session or prompt) from which such a project is generated, (2) the back-and-forth between human and AI isn't exactly like working wit…

> (2) there's nothing wrong with more people being able to create and share things There is very clearly many things wrong with this when the things being shown require very little skill or effort.

That is by no means all of these projects. I'm not interested in a circle-the-wagons crackdown because it won't work (see "it's foolish to fight the future" above), and because we should be welcoming and educating new users in how to contribute substantively to HN.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#65

Post by raincole »

I hope people start doing that. Not that it has any practical usage for the repo itself, but if everyone does that, it'd probably make it much easier for open weight models to catch up the proprietary ones. It'd be like a huge crowdsourced project to collect proprietary models' output for future training.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#66

Post by esperent »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #51

I floated that idea a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096202 , although I used the word "prompts" which users pointed out was obsolete. "Session" seems better for now. The objections I heard, which seemed solid, are (1) there's no single input to the AI (i.e. no single session or prompt) from which such a project is generated, (2) the back-and-forth between human and AI isn't exactly like working wit…

Unfortunately Codex doesn’t seem to be able to export the entire session as markdown, otherwise I’d suggest encouraging people to include that in their Show HNs. It’s kind of nuts that it’s so difficult to export what’s now a part of the engineering process. I don’t have anything against vibe coded apps, but what makes them interesting is to see the vibe coding session and all the false starts along the way. You lear…

I don't think it's hard to export, on the contrary its all already saved it your ~/.claude which so you could write up a tool to convert the data there to markdown.

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#67

Post by dang »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #51

I floated that idea a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096202 , although I used the word "prompts" which users pointed out was obsolete. "Session" seems better for now. The objections I heard, which seemed solid, are (1) there's no single input to the AI (i.e. no single session or prompt) from which such a project is generated, (2) the back-and-forth between human and AI isn't exactly like working wit…

Unfortunately Codex doesn’t seem to be able to export the entire session as markdown, otherwise I’d suggest encouraging people to include that in their Show HNs. It’s kind of nuts that it’s so difficult to export what’s now a part of the engineering process. I don’t have anything against vibe coded apps, but what makes them interesting is to see the vibe coding session and all the false starts along the way. You lear…

mthurman pointed me to https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2025/claude-code-mic... - is that what you have in mind?

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#68

Post by bonoboTP »

WD-42 wrote: post #25
burntoutgray wrote: post #7

YES! The session becomes the source code. Back in the dark ages, you'd "cc -s hello.c" to check the assembler source. With time we stopped doing that and hello.c became the originating artefact. On the same basis the session becomes the originating artefact .

This is only true if a llm session would produce a deterministic output which is not the case. This whole “LLMs are the new compiler” argument doesn’t hold water.

"Deterministic" is not the issue either, it's that small changes of the input will cause unknown changes in the output. You might theoretically achieve determinism and reproducibility for the exact same input (seeding the random number generators etc.), but the issue is that even if you formulate your request just a little differently, by changing punctuation for example, you'll get an entirely different output.

With compilers, the rules are clear, e.g. if you replace variable names with different ones, the program will still do the same thing. If you add spaces in places where whitespace doesn't matter, like around operators, the resulting behavior will still be the same. You change one function's definition, it doesn't impact another function's definition. (I'm sure you can nitpick this with some edge case, but that's not the point, it overwhelmingly can be relied upon in this way in day to day work.)

Re: If AI writes code, should the session be part of the commit?

#70

Post by mock-possum »

I’ve had the same thought, but after playing around with it, it just seems like adding noise. I never find myself looking at generated code and wondering “what prompt lead to that?” There’s no point, I won’t get any kind of useful response - I’m better off talking to the developer who committed it, that’s how code review works.
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