Snake oil. Good to read for sure. Seems all plausible too. But snake oil nevertheless.

Here's why: The slot machine can drop any hard requirement that you specifically in your AGENTS.md, memory.md or your dozens of skill markdowns. Pretty much guaranteed.

These harnesses approaches pretend as if LLMs are strict and perfect rule followers and the only problem is not being able to specify enough rules clearly enough. That's fundamental cognitive lapse in how LLMs operate.

That leaves only one option not reliable but more reliable nevertheless: Human review and oversight. Possibly two of them one after the other.

Everything else is snake oil but at that point, you also realize that promised productivity gains are also snake oil because reading code and building a mental model is way harder than having a mental model and writing it into code.

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vidarh an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Humans also drop any hard requirements you specify regularly, and similarly require review. Nevertheless we manage to increase reliability of human output through processes and reviews, and most of the methods we use for harnesses are taken from experience with how to reduce reliability issues in humans, who are notoriously difficult to ensure delivers reliably.

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cortesoft 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Everything you say is all possible, and in theory I agree with you.

However, I have been using spec-kit (which is basically this style of AI usage) for the last few months and it has been AMAZING in practice. I am building really great things and have not run into any of the issues you are talking about as hypotheticals. Could they eventually happen? Sure, maybe. I am still cautious.

But at some point once you have personally used it in practice for long enough, I can't just dismiss it as snake oil. I have been a computer programmer for over 30 years, and I feel like I have a good read on what works and what doesn't in practice.

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wg0 2 hours ago | parent [-]

We can build all the scaffolding around but I assure you that the LLMs aren't perfect rule following machines is the fundamental problem here and that would remain.

Give it a few more months and I'm sure you'll see some of what I see if not all.

I'm saying all the above having all sorts of systems tried and tested with AI leading me to say what I said.

	▲	cortesoft an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I have been doing this for 6 months or so now, and I am not sure that even if you have a lot more experience than me that it would make your assessment more accurate, since that just means you have more experience with prior generations of the models. What I have experienced is that the AI has been getting better and better, and is making fewer and fewer mistakes. Now, part of that is my advancements as well, as I learn how to specify my instructions to the AI and how to see in advance where the AI might have issues, but the advancements are also happening in the models themselves. They are just getting better, and rapidly. The combination of getting better at steering the AI along with the AI itself getting better is leading me to the opposite conclusion you have. I have production systems that I wrote using spec-kit, that have been running in production for months, and have been doing spectacularly. I have been able to consistently add the new features that I need to, without losing any cohesion or adherence to the principals i have defined. Now, are there mistakes? Of course, but nothing that can't be caught and fixed, and not at a higher rate than traditional programming.
	▲	Quarrel an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> LLMs aren't perfect rule following machines is the fundamental problem here I kind of get what you're saying, but let us not pretend that SW engineers are perfect rule followers either. Having a framework to work within, whether you are an LLM or a human, can be helpful.
	▲	saidnooneever 23 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		i think it depend on your goals and also your preference / expectation how your experience with LLMs is. i dont mind if they hallucinate. even if i have mental model of code i wont write it myself perfectly either. the only downside i see is getting out of practice, which is why for my passion projects i dont use it. work is just work and pressing 1 or 2 and having 'good enough' can be a fine way to get through the day. (lucky me i dont write production code ;D... goals...)