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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?

#131

Post by itemize123 »

rzerowan wrote: post #122
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…

This is a central problem that weve already seen proliferate wildly in Scientific research , and currently if the same is allowed to be embedded in foundational code. The future outlook would be grim. Replication crisis[1]. Given initial conditions and even accounting for 'noise' would a LLm arrive at the same output.It should , for the same reason math problems require one to show their working. Scientific papers re…

but we've been doing the same without llm. what're the new pieces which llm would bring in?

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

#132

Post by tayo42 »

I feel like publishing the session is like publishing a sketch book. I don't need all of my mistakes and dumb questions recorded.

If that was important, why are we not already doing things like this. Should I have always been putting my browser history in commits?

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

#133

Post by matchagaucho »

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…

For me, it’s about preserving optionality.

If I can run resume {session_id} within 30 days of a file’s latest change, there’s a strong chance I’ll continue evolving that story thread—or at least I’ve removed the friction if I choose to.

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

#134

Post by solarkraft »

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…

I agree that probably not everything should be stored - it’s too noisy. But the reason the session is so interesting is precisely the later part of the conversation - all the corrections in the details, where the actual, more precise requirements crystallize.

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

#135

Post by reflectt »

The session capture problem is harder than it looks because you need to capture intent, not steps.

A coding session has a lot of 'left turn, dead end, backtrack' noise that buries the decision that actually mattered. Committing the full session is like committing compiler output — technically complete, practically unreadable.

We've been experimenting with structured post-task reflections instead: after completing significant work, capture what you tried, what failed, what you'd do differently, and the actual decision reasoning. A few hundred tokens instead of tens of thousands. Commits with a reflection pointer rather than an embedded session.

The result is more useful than raw logs. Future engineers (or future AI sessions) can understand intent without replaying the whole conversation. It's closer to how good commit messages work — not 'here's what changed' but 'here's why'.

Dang's point about there being no single session is also real. Our biggest tasks span multiple sessions and multiple contributors. 'Capture the session' doesn't compose. 'Capture the decision' does.

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

#136

Post by D-Machine »

tpmoney wrote: post #117
D-Machine wrote: post #79

Obviously yes, at least if not the prompts in the session, some simple / automated distillation of those prompts. Code generated by AI is already clearly not going to be reviewed as carefully as code produced by humans, and intentions / assumptions will only be documented in AI-generated comments to some limited degree, completely contingent on the prompt(s). Otherwise, when fixing a bug, you just risk starting from…

> Obviously yes I don't think this is obvious at all. We don't make the keystroke logs part of the commit history. We don't make the menu item selections part of the commit history. We don't make the 20 iterations you do while trying to debug an issue part of the commit history (well, maybe some people do but most people I know re-write the same file multiple times before committing, or rebase/squash intermediate com…

> well, maybe some people do but most people I know re-write the same file multiple times before committing, or rebase/squash intermediate commits into more useful logical commits

Right, agreed on this, we want a distillation, not documentation of every step.

> For example, having some documentation for the intent behind a given series of commits and any assumptions made can be quite valuable in the future, but every single discussion between any two devs on a project as part of the commit history would be so much noise for very little gain. AI prompts and sessions seem to me to fall into that same bucket.

Yes, documenting every single discussion is a waste / too much to process, but I do think prompts at least are pretty crucial relative to sessions. Prompts basically are the core intentions / motivations (skills aside). It is hard to say whether we really want earlier / later prompts, given how much context changes based on the early prompts, but having no info about prompts or sessions is a definite negative in vibe-coding, where review is weak and good documentation, comments, and commit messages are only weakly incentivized.

> Some of these things might be useful to preserve some of the time either in the commit history or along side it

Right, along side is fine to me as well. Just something has to make up for the fact that vibe-coding only appears faster (currently) if you ignore the fact it is weakly-reviewed and almost certainly incurring technical debt. Documenting some basic aspects of the vibe-coding process is the most basic and easy way to reduce these long-term costs.

EDIT: Also, as I said, information about the prompts quickly reveals competence / incompetence, and is crucial for management / business in hiring, promotions, managing token budgets, etc. Oh, and of course, one of the main purposes of code review was to teach. Now, that teaching has to shift toward teaching better prompting and AI use. That gets a lot harder with no documentation of the session!

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

#139

Post by D-Machine »

reflectt wrote: post #135

The session capture problem is harder than it looks because you need to capture intent, not steps. A coding session has a lot of 'left turn, dead end, backtrack' noise that buries the decision that actually mattered. Committing the full session is like committing compiler output — technically complete, practically unreadable. We've been experimenting with structured post-task reflections instead: after completing sig…

Something like "it is important to document core / crucial prompts somewhere" covers it. Whether this should be in git or elsewhere is trickier, but doing vibe-coding without documenting any aspect of the process is a recipe for disaster.

Also, how can we (or future AI models) hope to improve if there is only limited and summary documentation of AI usage?

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

#140

Post by rzerowan »

itemize123 wrote: post #131
rzerowan wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a central problem that weve already seen proliferate wildly in Scientific research , and currently if the same is allowed to be embedded in foundational code. The future outlook would be grim. Replication crisis[1]. Given initial conditions and even accounting for 'noise' would a LLm arrive at the same output.It should , for the same reason math problems require one to show their working. Scientific papers re…

but we've been doing the same without llm. what're the new pieces which llm would bring in?

with normal practice , say if im reading through the linux source for a particular module.Id be able to refernce mailing lists and patchsets which by convention have to be human parsable/reviewable.Wit the history/comments/git blame etc putting in ones headspace the frame of reference that produced it.
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