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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?

#181

Post by bloomca »

I don't think it's worth to include the session -- it would bloat the context too much anyway.

However, I do think that a higher-level description of every notable feature should be documented, along with the general implementation details. I use this approach for my side projects and it works fairly well.

The biggest question whether it will scale, I suspect that no, and I also suspect it is probably better to include nothing than a poor/disjointed/rare documentation of the sessions.

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

#182

Post by the-grump »

jedberg wrote: post #173

The way I write code with AI is that I start with a project.md file, where I describe what I want done. I then ask it to make a plan.md file from that project.md to describe the changes it will make (or what it will create if Greenfield). I then iterate on that plan.md with the AI until it's what I want. I then ask it to make a detailed todo list from the plan.md and attach it to the end of plan.md. Once I'm fully sa…

Stealing this brilliant idea. Thank you for sharing!

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

#183

Post by gingersnap »

My instinct is to say that I don't want the session as part of the commit. For me that is like a Slack thread discussing the new feature, and that is not something I would commit. I think that the split shouldn't be "is this done with a machine"=> commit, I think the split for AI should be the same as before. Is it code or changes of code, then it should be included. Is it discussing, going back and forth, that is not commited now. On the other hand, if you do a plan that is then implemented, I actually do think it makes sense to save the plan, either as commit, or if you save that back to the issue.

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

#184

Post by mocamoca »

eru wrote: post #111
827a wrote: post #94

IMO: This might be a contrarian opinion, but I don't think so. Its much the same problem as asking, for example, if every single line you write, or every function, becomes a commit. The answer to this granularity is, much like anything, you have to think of the audience: Who is served by persisting these sessions? I would suspect that there is little reason why future engineers, or future LLMs, would need access to t…

> Its much the same problem as asking, for example, if every single line you write, or every function, becomes a commit. Hmm, I think that's the wrong comparison? The more useful comparison might be: should all your notes you made and dead ends you tried become part of the commit?

In some cases this is what I ask from my juniors. Not for every commit, but during some specific reviews. The goal is to coach them on why and how they got a specific result.

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

#185

Post by frank00001 »

jedberg wrote: post #173

The way I write code with AI is that I start with a project.md file, where I describe what I want done. I then ask it to make a plan.md file from that project.md to describe the changes it will make (or what it will create if Greenfield). I then iterate on that plan.md with the AI until it's what I want. I then ask it to make a detailed todo list from the plan.md and attach it to the end of plan.md. Once I'm fully sa…

Sounds like the spec driven approach. You should take a look at this https://github.com/github/spec-kit

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

#187

Post by micw »

ffsm8 wrote: post #144
micw wrote: post #143

IMO it depends a bit, but in most cases: No! If you do proper software development (planing, spec, task breakdown, test case spec, implementation, unit test, acceptance test, ...) implementation is just a single step and the generated artifact is the source code. And that's what needs to be checked in. All the other artifacts are usually stored elsewhere. If you do spec and planing with AI, you should also commit the…

LLMs frequently hallucinate and go off on wild goose chases. It's admittedly gotten a lot better, but it still happens. From that perspective alone the session would be important meta information that could be used to determine the rationale of a commit - right from the intent (prompt) to what the harness (Claude code etc) made of it. So there is more value in keeping it even in your second scenario

I try to use AI incremental and verify each result. If it goes mad, I just revert and start over. It's a bit slower but ensures consistency and correctness and it's still a huge improvement over doing everything manually.

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

#188

Post by anshumankmr »

stackghost wrote: post #174
jedberg wrote: post #173

The way I write code with AI is that I start with a project.md file, where I describe what I want done. I then ask it to make a plan.md file from that project.md to describe the changes it will make (or what it will create if Greenfield). I then iterate on that plan.md with the AI until it's what I want. I then ask it to make a detailed todo list from the plan.md and attach it to the end of plan.md. Once I'm fully sa…

>I then iterate on that plan.md with the AI until it's what I want. Which tools/interface are you using for this? Opencode/claude code? Gas town?

While I have not commited my personal mind map, I just had Claude Code write it down for me. Plus I have a small Claude.MD, copilots-innstructions.md that are mentioning the various intricacies of what I am working on so the agent knows to refer to that file.

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

#189

Post by Lerc »

I would say not, because it would lead some to think that what was said to the model represented what output was desired. While there is quite a bit of correlation with describing what you want with the output you receive, the nature of models as they stand mean you are not asking for what you want, you are crafting the text that elicits the response that you want. That distinction is important, and is model specific. Without keeping an archive of the entire model used to generate the output, the conversation can be very misleading.

Conversations may also be very non-linear. You can take a path attempting something, roll back to a fork in the conversation and take a different path using what you have learned from the models output. I think trying to interpret someone else's branching flow would be more likely to create an inaccurate impression than understanding.

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

#190

Post by blharr »

panarky wrote: post #180
eru wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its much the same problem as asking, for example, if every single line you write, or every function, becomes a commit. Hmm, I think that's the wrong comparison? The more useful comparison might be: should all your notes you made and dead ends you tried become part of the commit?

When a human writes the code should all their slack messages about the project be committed into the repo?

Ideally, yes? Or a reference ticket number pointing to that discussion

The main limitation is the human effort to compile that information, but if the LLM already has the transcript ready, its free

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