Mitchell Hashimoto did the same thing with Ghostty and I respect the decision. AI assistance is okay but writing slop with little to no effort to understand it simply to get a badge that you've contributed to OSS is a waste of time for everyone.
>How can my feedback improve you as a software developer if you don't understand your own code?
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
If it’s a low risk site (marketing page), I’ve been blindly approving them so that the engineer can go and fix it when prod breaks. Submit unreviewed garbage, get unreviewed garbage. I am not your quality gate keeper.
On the flip-side of this, have had friends have their MRs against projects get "reviewed" by CoPilot which does a lot of unnecessary nit-picking and can often be incorrect at it. I get it helps project maintainers save time, but it just feels very dismissive to have your code be thrown to a robot to critique and comment on.
> Merge Request (MR): when a programmer submits proposed changes to a project in a structured way. This makes it easy for anyone to see the differences and review the changes. Sometimes called a Pull Request.
Ok, maybe I’m in a bubble, and my job is only coding-adjacent, but I’ve literally never heard a PR called an MR until today. Is this a new thing?
I would just create an agent that provides the reviews. Instead of saying "your MR meets some of the criteria I have in this blog post", the agent can point very clearly at the exact criteria and how the merge request meets them, and can even make improvement suggestions. At the end, the author would review the AI generated review, to make sure everything sounds (and is) right. AI can be used in good ways, and bad ways. Show them the good way.
1. I wonder if it would be more effective or land better if it didn’t mention AI at all. You’re not rejecting because of the tools they used, you’re rejecting because it’s a poor request.
2. I’d suggest an addition along the lines of “by the way, since I’m not seeing anything here that would make me think that there might just be some misunderstandings, this request makes me trust you, individually, a little bit less than I did before, and that will be reflected in how I address future requests from you. Happy to chat about it though. Please remember that trust is what makes all of this work.”
I wonder why we haven’t seen AI weaponised in the opposite direction yet? Say, a bot with a prmpt like “criticise this PR into oblivion” let loose on AI-generated PRs. The “contributor” is supposed to address the concerns but will they be able to?
18 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] threadThat must be frustrating for OSS maintainers, especially when contributing them can meaningfully move the needle on getting jobs, clients, etc.
Definitely makes sense to have rules in place to help dissuade it, but this brave new world isn't going away.
Just give feedback or decline the PR
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
The author isn't even condemning all AI generated MRs. Only ones meeting a few conditions.
Ok, maybe I’m in a bubble, and my job is only coding-adjacent, but I’ve literally never heard a PR called an MR until today. Is this a new thing?
1. I wonder if it would be more effective or land better if it didn’t mention AI at all. You’re not rejecting because of the tools they used, you’re rejecting because it’s a poor request.
2. I’d suggest an addition along the lines of “by the way, since I’m not seeing anything here that would make me think that there might just be some misunderstandings, this request makes me trust you, individually, a little bit less than I did before, and that will be reflected in how I address future requests from you. Happy to chat about it though. Please remember that trust is what makes all of this work.”