I exhausted my ability to do this (without AI). It was a codebase I don't know, in a language I don't know, solving a problem that I have a very limited viewpoint of.

These are all reasons why pre-AI I'd never have bothered to even try this, it wouldn't be worth my time.

If you think this is therefore "bad engineering", maybe that's true! As I said, I ended up discarding the change because I wasn't happy with it.

> I exhausted my ability to do this (without AI). It was a codebase I don't know, in a language I don't know, solving a problem that I have a very limited viewpoint of.

And that's the critical point! I think it's fine to send the diff in; and clearly mark it as AI / vibe-coded. (Along with your prompts.)