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Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#131

Post by aleqs »

fractorial wrote: post #123
aleqs wrote: post #85

I'm working an an agentic graph-based workflow execution engine/framework. The concept of the harness is completely abstracted away/generified - a 'node/agent's is a harness (cc, codex, open code, pi, etc) + model (I test different model and harness combinations). I have a set of tasks from trivial to complex - a set workflows (a workflow is a set of initial nodes and their behaviour) is defined and each one is asked…

I rolled my own simple execution DAG program. It’s shockingly effective due to rooting sub-DAGs into Planner nodes which are the only mutators of the DAG. The deepest topological leaf nodes become the blockers to the next Planner node. The only other special node is a Human node; structurally impossible for agents to close (I rolled my own harness) and block on my attention.

Nice, yeah also I have planner nodes, review nodes and organizer nodes (organizers can mutate the graph/workflow, create new node types, etc.) Trying to automate the node type/role definitions and overall workflow definitions as much as possible.

I split my project into 3 layers - the engine/infra layer (handles task dispatch/queuing, spinning up node/agent containers, etc.), the 'brain' - basically a collection of different workflow models and related stuff (multiple different models for testing/exploration purposes), and the harness.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#132

Post by fblp »

vitally3643 wrote: post #128
fellerts wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds cool, do you have a more detailed write-up?

Nope, honestly it's about three weekends worth of vibe coded python slop. Far, far below my personal standards for publication. Maybe one day when I get a useful result I'll publish a blog.

One of the cooler things I've read on here as it's a next level "homebrew" AI setup! I'd be curious what some examples of debate outputs are. Please consider writing about it!

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#133

Post by _pdp_ »

Yes. I built recently an agent that has very broad set of objectives and nothing in particular. I don't even know what it does most of the time but hopefully it will do something useful eventually.

You track its progress here https://github.com/relentlessworks

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#134

Post by fragmede »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #95
npollock wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly, it's like Bobby Fischer playing 10 games of chess simultaneously

so Step 1: Be Bobby Fischer? super helpful for us mortals...

Give yourself more credit. Bobby Fischer didn't wake up one morning the chess wiz that he is now, it took years of practice and failing. And we're not talking about chess either. Start prompting one agent on one task in one worktree. Spin up a second agent on a second task in a second work tree. Repeat until you hit flow state for you. It might be at three agents or thirteen. Who cares how many other people are on, get to however many is just under too many for you to manage.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#135

Post by avilay »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #75
avilay wrote: post #13

Not being able to enter flow state is a very interesting observation. I've felt it too to the extent that I went down a whole new rabbit hole of what it means to be in flow state. Let me know if anybody here wants to know more, happy to post some links. To answer your question - I discuss the approach with Claude Code (e.g., should I implement my own ACT model in JAX or PyTorch, Python or Rust or Julia, etc.). Then w…

>I've felt it too to the extent that I went down a whole new rabbit hole of what it means to be in flow state. Let me know if anybody here wants to know more, happy to post some links. I'm not a programmer, but I very much enter a flow state working on tickets, or playing a video game on higher difficulties when everything "clicks"

For sure, any task or activity that is hard enough and just outside our reach, can get us into flow state. The trick is in ensuring that it is the right kind of hard, it is not too hard, and we time box the activity/task. If you think of how to beat the boss fight in a video game even when you are not playing it, it is the "right kind of hard". For me, beating the boss fights in Elden Ring were too hard, never got into flow state in that game :-)

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#137

Post by fragmede »

y0eswddl wrote: post #97
tony_cannistra wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also tried this. Very interesting, but must be used sparingly in my experience. Hiking is a place where before I used to go to think, or not think at all. Prompting an AI while doing so can feel very bad if really what I'm looking for is some disconnection or quiet thinking time.

yeah, makes perfect sense to go for a hike through nature whole checking a phone every 3-8 minutes...

Well no, you don't check it, you have notifications set up so it notifies you when it's waiting for you. If you don't want to hikevibecode, don't. No one's forcing you, who are you to yuck someone else's yum?

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#138

Post by irthomasthomas »

Try this prompt: While working on the main task, launch a parallel sub-agent with the task context so far. The sub agent should think of high quality questions and put them to the user using a dialogue tool like zenity. Customize the inputs to the question, taking full advantage of the dialogue tools features to create a progressive interactive user experience. Ask only a few questions per turn so that you can adapt the questions to the answers.

This will keep you busy while the main agent runs. Customize it further to integrate the sub-agent answers to the main thread.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#139

Post by fragmede »

doubled112 wrote: post #83
Scroll_Swe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've felt it too to the extent that I went down a whole new rabbit hole of what it means to be in flow state. Let me know if anybody here wants to know more, happy to post some links. I'm not a programmer, but I very much enter a flow state working on tickets, or playing a video game on higher difficulties when everything "clicks"

I miss feeling like I was "in the zone", but I haven't been able to achieve it in years. Between having kids and a work situation a few years back, it is like my brain expects to be interrupted at any moment, so won't get there.

Teaching your kids to have a calendar and focus blocks (once they're old enough) is as good a habit to teach them as it is for you.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#140

Post by aleqs »

weitendorf wrote: post #112
aleqs wrote: post #85

I'm working an an agentic graph-based workflow execution engine/framework. The concept of the harness is completely abstracted away/generified - a 'node/agent's is a harness (cc, codex, open code, pi, etc) + model (I test different model and harness combinations). I have a set of tasks from trivial to complex - a set workflows (a workflow is a set of initial nodes and their behaviour) is defined and each one is asked…

My company tried to build something like this pre-TUI as a tool-AI-IO dag dispatcher. The biggest mistake I made was thinking that people would have no problem figuring out how they could translate their work or define multi-step automations, and focusing on the orchestration and sandboxing thinking that was the core, when it was really figuring out how to get the onboarding UX/complexity to not feel daunting or more…

I'm my case a workflow is basically an active/living graph of nodes/sub-tasks. One node can process a task (with all relevant context) and create multiple fan-out tasks, or it can add additional context/requirements and pass it along to another node. The message/task passing is all implemented as queue - nodes subscribe to messages/tasks addressed to them and execute them, producing more tasks (or zero new tasks). For each task there is a context and a parent task/context, as well as a key/value store of all tasks and their context. Each agent/node gets instructions injected into their prompts that tell them how to look up parents tasks/context as well as how to output new tasks.

There is also a feedback loop - a node can fail to process a task, and pass the reasoning/context for that back to the parent or another node - this might result in a new adjusted task replacing the failed task, or it might require human intervention.

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