Why wouldn't it already just do this though?

Unless prompted to do so, why would it? From the article: "Every shortcut you merge into your codebase is a signal about how things are done here."

	▲	soperj an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Not duplicating code is literally best practice. Why would it deviate from that?

notatoad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It does. Claude has a built in review and it’s pretty good. But it doesn’t know exactly what you want. This is a way to tell it.

Good way to double your token use though, if you’re concerned about that.

	▲	zahlman 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> But it doesn’t know exactly what you want. This is a way to tell it. What ever happened to communicating through code? Agents can follow examples and infer patterns, and they can read commit history and diffs. Real-world commit logs for human-only projects are dominated by short commits (well, at least the ones where the humans are skilled, appreciate version control, care about the project, etc.) with thoughtful commit messages. cf. https://wiki.c2.com/?JustCorrectDontPoint