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The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

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Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#431

Post by ozozozd »

sfn42 wrote: post #248
jcgrillo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments are great until they diverge from the code. The "no comments, just self-explanatory code" reaction comes from the trauma of having to read hundreds of lines of comments only to discover they have nothing to do with how the code actually works, because over time the code has received updates but the comments haven't. In that case it's better to just have no comments or documentation of any kind--less cognitiv…

This is honestly such a bad argument against comments. I'm gonna note down my reasons for doing things and other information I deem useful, and if some other dipshit 5 years from now when I've moved on comes along and starts changing everything up without keeping the comments up to date that's their problem not mine. There was never anything wrong with my comments, the only thing that's wrong is the dipshit messing t…

You may be a bit overconfident about how clear you will be with your comments.

The “dipshit” doesn’t mess everything up for fun. They don’t understand the comments written by the previous “dipshit” and thus are unable to update the comments.

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#432

Post by selcuka »

tempaccount420 wrote: post #391
flutas wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also wondering if it's even legally valid? They constantly love to talk about Claude Code being "100%" being vibe coded...and the US legal system is leaning towards that not being copyrightable. It could still be a trade secret, but that doesn't fall under a DMCA take down.

You're confused, AI can't itself hold copyright, but the human who triggered the AI to write the code holds the copyright instead.

This is even worse. My Claude Code instance can theoretically write the same code as your instance for a similar prompt. Why should one of us be able to have the copyright?

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#433

Post by CharlieDigital »

embedding-shape wrote: post #135
CharlieDigital wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments are the ultimate agent coding hack. If you're not using comments, you're doing agent coding wrong. Why? Agents may or may not read docs. It may or may not use skills or tools. It will always read comments "in the line of sight" of the task. You get free long term agent memory with zero infrastructure.

> If you're not using comments, you're doing agent coding wrong. Comments are ultimately so you can understand stuff without having to read all the code. LLMs are great when you force them to read all code, and comments only serve to confuse. I'd say the opposite been true in my experience, if you're not forcing LLMs to not have any comments at all (and it can actually skip those, looking at you Gemini), you're doing…

You're wasting context doing that when a 3 line comment that the agent itself leaves can prevent the agent from searching and reading 30 files.

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#434

Post by tacone »

otterley wrote: post #41
mzajc wrote: post #37

There are now several comments that (incorrectly?) interpret the undercover mode as only hiding internal information. Excerpts from the actual prompt[0]: NEVER include in commit messages or PR descriptions: - The phrase "Claude Code" or any mention that you are an AI - Co-Authored-By lines or any other attribution BAD (never write these): - 1-shotted by claude-opus-4-6 - Generated with Claude Code - Co-Authored-By: C…

I would have expected people (maybe a small minority, but that includes myself) to have already instructed Claude to do this. It’s a trivial instruction to add to your CLAUDE.md file.

It doesn't work so well in my experience. I am currently wrapping (or asking the LLM to wrap) the commit message prompt in a script call.

   1. the LLM is instructed on how to write a commit message and never include co-authorship
   2. the LLM is asked to produce a commit message
   3. the LLM output is parsed by a script which removes co-authorship if the LLM chooses to include it nevertheless

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#435

Post by altmanaltman »

spacechild1 wrote: post #399
tempaccount420 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confused, AI can't itself hold copyright, but the human who triggered the AI to write the code holds the copyright instead.

IIUC, a person can only claim copyright if they have significantly transformed the output. Unaltered LLM output is not copyrightable per US court decisions. The whole thing is a legal mess. How do you know the LLM did not reproduce existing code? There is an ongoing legal battle in German between GEMA and OpenAI because ChatGPT reproduced parts of existing song lyrics. A court in Munich has found that this violates G…

I think you're misunderstanding copyright and ownership.

A copyright over code means that ONLY you can use that code, and nobody else; otherwise, you can sue them. For example, if you are an arist, you want to protect your IP this way.

Yes, AI generated code is not copyrightable but so is most code in general. It is very hard to truly get a copyright for a piece of code. But just because you don't have copyright to something doesn't mean it's not your property.

For example, you can buy several movies on DVD and those DVDs will still be your property even though you don't have copyright and if someone does steal those DVDs, it will be considered theft of your property. Similarly, just because the code is AI-generated/not copyrightable, doesn't mean others can just steal it.

Think about it - so many codebases are not legally protected as copyrighted material but are absolutely protected by IP laws and enforced by the companies that own them.

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#436

Post by dang »

autocracy101 wrote: post #202

I made a visual guide for this https://ccunpacked.dev

Discussed here: Claude Code Unpacked : A visual guide - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47597085 - April 2026 (6 comments)

(I know you know this, since you submitted it! but others might want to know)

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#437

Post by xarope »

tdb7893 wrote: post #281
manbitesdog wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cringe every time I see Claude trying to co-author a commit. The git history is expected to track accountability and ownership, not your Bill of Tools. Should I also co-author my PRs with my linter, intellisense and IDE?

If those tools are writing the code then in general I do expect that to be included in the PR! Through my whole career I've seen PRs where people noted that code that was generated (people have been generating code since long before LLMs). It's useful context unless you've gone over the generated code and understand it and it is the same quality as if you wrote it yourself (which in my experience is the case where it…

Absolutely. Let's say I have a problem with gRPC and traced it to code generated using the gRPC compiler. I can reproduce it, highlight it and I'm pretty sure the gRPC team would address the issue.

Replace gRPC compiler with LLM. Can you reproduce? (probably not 100%). Can anybody fix it short of throwing more english phrases like "DO NOT", "NEVER", "Under No Circumstances"?

Probably not.

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#438

Post by riedel »

mzajc wrote: post #37

There are now several comments that (incorrectly?) interpret the undercover mode as only hiding internal information. Excerpts from the actual prompt[0]: NEVER include in commit messages or PR descriptions: - The phrase "Claude Code" or any mention that you are an AI - Co-Authored-By lines or any other attribution BAD (never write these): - 1-shotted by claude-opus-4-6 - Generated with Claude Code - Co-Authored-By: C…

No problem at all in the EU, as the user would either would need to review and redact the output or would need to put a transparency note up by law [0]. I am sure that Anthropic with their high ethical standards will educate their users ...

[0] https://ai-act-service-desk.ec.europa.eu/en/ai-act/article-5...

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#439

Post by altmanaltman »

tempaccount420 wrote: post #391
flutas wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also wondering if it's even legally valid? They constantly love to talk about Claude Code being "100%" being vibe coded...and the US legal system is leaning towards that not being copyrightable. It could still be a trade secret, but that doesn't fall under a DMCA take down.

You're confused, AI can't itself hold copyright, but the human who triggered the AI to write the code holds the copyright instead.

No the human cannot hold the copyright also. They can own the property rights to the code and protect it. It's not like the rule is "AI cannot copyright stuff but humans can" but rather code is rarely copyrighted and in its case, ownership is much more important.

If your code was generated by you and you store it in your system and have property rights over it, you can enforce legal actions even without holding a copyright over the code.

In general, it is kind of weird to want to copyright code. How do you patent a for-loop for example

Re: The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes, undercover mode

#440

Post by cfbradford »

mzajc wrote: post #37

There are now several comments that (incorrectly?) interpret the undercover mode as only hiding internal information. Excerpts from the actual prompt[0]: NEVER include in commit messages or PR descriptions: - The phrase "Claude Code" or any mention that you are an AI - Co-Authored-By lines or any other attribution BAD (never write these): - 1-shotted by claude-opus-4-6 - Generated with Claude Code - Co-Authored-By: C…

Does this apply to their internal use as well? They can really only claim DMCA status on the leaked code if it was authored by humans. Claude attribution in their internal git history would make a strong case that they do not in fact own the copyright to Claude Code itself and are therefore abusing the DMCA system to protect leaked trade secrets rather than protect copyright.
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