Cluttering the repo with out-dated, very wordy and quickly aging prompts will just confuse any agent tasked with looking at the repo in the future. Keeping context windows down is a real limitation to good LLM output, and this workflow may work completely against it.
- A plan.md describing the project, main abstraction idea, end costumer, and so on is great; but it should be kept minimal and up-to-date with the repo.
- Block comments on top of source-files and functions are great, and already very useful to coding agents. I don't see a value to anything more than what is already typical best practice.
If prompts are specifications for a change of the system's behavior, then it seems natural to manage them as changes and not as resources.
This would also keep them in the right "historical context" of the repo and avoid the "prompt rot" you were talking about.
Functional safety development processes often demand code-review, technical design decisions, changes of plans, or intentional compromises; to be linked together with reference IDs in the code they effect. But the workflow for this is usually extremely manual and absolute misery. But a codebase made like this is like magic to read later.
"yes claude i prefered the blue graph two months ago, how does thar help us with this json parsing bug?"
Ok I already talked myself out of this idea.
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Unless a LLM works truly as a compiler, there will be a drift between the code and the spec.
But I don't really like the "LLMs as compiler" metaphor. If you followed that logic to the end, you'd have to "rebuild" your entire project from the spec every time the spec changes. Not just would the token cost be insane, but you'd also get a completely different implementation each time, maybe with different UI and design decisions where the spec left things open.
The alternative is to see the code as the source of truth and LLMs as (extremely sophisticated) editing or refactoring tools. Then by all means, still check in your prompts, but now they are documentation on how a feature was implemented, not the source of truth themselves.
For people who like this idea, or do something similar, how do you make use of prompts used to create code checked into your codebase?
I can see it valuable at the review stage, but if I was trying to trace-back a regression to a previous commit, I feel like I already have enough noise without this attached.
We did put non-code into /src for a very long time: It was heredocs, multiline docs, etc. Actually my preference is to put texts close to code and only fallback to /docs/something.md at a conceptual level. Which is probably what the author proposes, given that he sees markdown as primary interface to code.
One example is SpiderMonkey, which uses these beautiful, long expository comments explaining not only what, but why design choices have been made. https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/js/public/RootingA...
If the goal is "locality", you can't get much closer than as a comment.
As far as markdown becoming "source code for agents" under the agentic paradigm, per-directory `AGENTS.md` seems more consistent, at least visually. If agent managed markdown is going to be high-churn, I'd rather it be confined to a single file. Constraints, especially for agents, are good.
It's a SEXP language but could just as easily be markdown. It'd probably be better if it was - I spend a lot of tokens matching parentheses.
Compared to markdown - I lose some human readability but gain a lot in workflow.
For me - it turns the sort of "free form jazz code odyssey" into something with structure. It changes the question to "does the spec match my idea? And does the code match my spec?"
Every so often, I do a "code astrology reset" and try to purge all the tricks I use to keep things functional. I absolutely notice an efficiency hit when I don't have a spec language. Even with the new models - I find this essential to keep things on track.
I think most people on large projects hit a scaling ceiling with markdown specs. They get massive and contradictory very quickly. I think a src/md folder is a good strategy. I try to organize with a "one spec per module" rule. It doesn't always happen that way but I find that helpful.
I think Literate Programming is a good inspiration here. I also think Yegge's beads and Gastown have some really smart things to say in this regard - even if he's a bit tokenmaxxy for my taste.
I would much rather have significantly more detailed comments inline with code to describe the intention at any given step than just a high level markdown file. We already have PDRs and markdown seems like it would just be an extension of that.
Source code main attribute should be reproducable builds...
Same source gives the same output.
The interesting part of any program source is what it took to make that program. I view AI-generated code in the same category that I see a binary.
[1] https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Technical/2026/04-April/Stop-...
Essays of this nature should generally be prefixed with "if you happen to work in exactly the same way that I do..."
In-between all those ephemeral agent sessions, spec, plan and design files, there is something that survives. The src/*.md files.
With Varar you can link small parts (cells) of those Markdown files to your code, so they stay in sync. So you (and agents) can find out what your system does without reading 300 million lines of code.
Full disclaimer: I am the guy who wrote Cucumber - that most people here hate. I eventually lost my love for that tool myself, but I did miss the ability to keep docs and code in sync. Hence Varar - a tool like that with fewer (different?) warts, for the agentic area.
Before implementation, context is always cleared to ensure that the model is working only from known context (skills, AGENT.md, etc).
A major benefit of this is that agents can look up prior prompt instructions as needed or when mentioned in the current prompt it's working on.
I recently described my workflow here https://jaisenmathai.com/articles/sojourn-for-ios-was-45-one...
src/
md/
README.md # index of all md, entry point for agents
TODO.md # a list of general TODOs open for this module
OVERVIEW.md # a technical overview of this module
features/FEATURE_1.md # a set of feature-specific documents
data/DATAMODEL_1.md # descriptions of data models in the module
api/API_1.md # descriptions of APIs the module provides
infrastructure/INFRASTRUCTURE_1.md # descriptions of infrastructure used by the module
src/
README.md # entry point for humans and agents
TODO.md # list of general TODOs open for this module
INFRA.md # descriptions of infrastructure used by the module
api/
README.md # descriptions of APIs the module provides
models/
README.md # descriptions of data models in this module
1. he's describing a manual version of Spec-Kit / OpenSpec / BMAD?
2. Thinks Markdown is... somehow different from normal text or other markup languages?
3. Doesn't seem to understand that LLMs are not deterministic?
this not perfect but he is describing a real trend, so listen with open mind.
IME developers have low tolerance for interrupting flow to track down the docu that is aimed at them, so keep it near and obvious.
First, none of this changes the need for a separate `/docs` dir, also checked into git. Wikis are fun, but docs are essential!
Second, I personally think the new paradigm will be putting all of this into tons of new README.md files, which I'm kinda baffled aren't more common deep into dir hierarchies already. That intuitively tells the human authors and the artificial readers that;
A) it toes a similar "for technical people but not necessarily just our dedicated engineering team" line as the root README --more formal than an ephemeral "prompt" and less formal than a user-facing doc,
B) this isn't the AGENT.md file so should remain human-authored only,
C) this is only an overview with a strong preference for brevity & clarity, and
D) this is focused on this specific directory (along w/ the other benefits of locality, as the author extolls already).
Have I cracked the code? Is there a Turing award for inventing the concept of using a tool we already use but just a bit more extensively -- or at least a YC slot?
*P.S.* OP you dropped this: )
Nested markdown or restructured-text or asciidoc is pretty good workflow already to re-use blocks, link to different pages, or do some rich formatting like collapsible sections.
This is being done with an agent-first approach in mind. Agents cost a lot to run. Moving markdown to /src will only help AI subscription sellers.
If you are a fan of local LLM, then you also know code is not cheap. It requires substantial amount of investment in infra acquisition and maintenance.
Markdown should be where they always were, in /docs. It does not make a difference for an agent. But it allows to keep /src clean and adhere to zero-token architecture.
I assume src/ is treated as the source of truth. If we start placing Markdown documentation inside src/, outdated documentation can live alongside the actual source of truth, blurring the boundary between what the system actually does and what the documentation says it does.
Yes, proximity indeed helps. However, I feel its better to automate docs revision using skills and related instructions in claude.mf/agents.md
I am building something in related problem, which is architecture visualisation
My conclusion is, that i want neat markdown. Hence it needs to be linted/formatted.
Developed a linter/formatter https://mdsmith.dev to specifically do that. Includes tooling for progressive disclosure, etc.
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One thing to say given some of the comments here: in this approach the stuff in /src/md would be treated as well as stuff in /src/java or whatever: it would need to be maintained as precisely as possible, not just be a stream of development record of what has happened.
I'm also happy to consider that Markdown might not be the right format for this, or that the whole thing is a terrible idea. But I see people saving content in other places (linear, etc.) that drive agents and it just seems like maybe we should keep that stuff close to the generated source.
i'd be enthused to work this way if changes to `src/*.md` files could be "hot-reloaded" on save, like an iterative LLM watch compiler, and skipping the chat prompts altogether.
If you split code up into multiple packages, moving the docs closer to the code might make sense. The docs for package foo could be in packages/foo/docs.
I don't like it though.
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> That Markdown should be checked in to /src
I've made a similar argument last June, although I made the point with a sample project rather than manifesto style
https://github.com/TZubiri/keyboard-transpositions-checker
> A Proof of Concept for LLM as source code. I am of the position that the "code" is now target code and not source code. My strongest source for this claim is Stallman's classical definition of Source Code which is the "preferred way to modify the program".
> Upload the conversation with ChatGPT as source code
Although this was pre-agents/markdown, the main way to generate code was just with user-interface conversations with the LLM.
And my position differs in which I argue against uploading the target code, just the source code. Which is an issue if the LLM is not deterministic, but it's workable.
That said I apparently did foreshadow solutions to these issues
> Since we are using a consumer interface, and not an api, (first we have no guarantees that the code will not be used for training, so there's no IP protection, but also), we don't have much reproducibility, robust publishing should use API access and publish exact model with revision as well as seed (and even then we are not guaranteed reproducibility.
I think in general we'll end up rewinding so much, the sloppers are recursing and building a ton of harnessing tools that will need to be trashed because they made a fundamental mistake at the very first steps. Those of us who are a bit more careful will probably only get back to agentic engineering once the slopper activity dies down, it's pretty much career suicide at this point to get into it. Anyone who is barely careful is just waiting it out.
You'd consequently only need to implement your custom git gui and extension to visualize this information.
Maybe a good project for the next weekend? Just eg make a prototype tui in golang and see where you end up
The tech and data-structure is there; but the common UX is not quite expressing the data in a sophisticated manner. It doesn't help that the default diff algorithm is rather crude as-well.
git commit -m "Autoformat source files"
git log --format="# %s%n%H" -1 >> .git-blame-ignore-revs
git add .git-blame-ignore-revs
git commit -m "Ignore autoformat commit in blames"
cat .git-blame-ignore-revs
# Autoformat source files
0a1b2c3d...
git blame --ignore-revs-file .git-blame-ignore-revs code.src
git config blame.ignoreRevsFile .git-blame-ignore-revs
git blame code.src
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The reason is that the commit message log serves as an overview of the changes commited. That's what humans use it for, anyway: to get an idea of what happened since they last pulled, to help give an idea of where a regression might have been introduced and so on, at a glance. To that end, brevity is very useful.
My understanding is that chatbots used to perform such tasks will also benefit from brevity.
AFAIK, the first line is supposed to be the a very brief summary, while the other lines may contain additional information and can sometimes make up a pretty long text. Lots of tools make use of this convention and only show the first line if no detail information is needed.
Most tools that show the history only show the first line of each commit.
But I agree with you, this still assumes that long commit messages are rare and not that almost every commit has a huge message. Also, "long" doesn't mean you should put a novel in there.
As far as specifications for changes go, the diff itself is as good a spec as it gets. It unambiguously describes the exact change that was made. The prompt you give a chatbot to make that change is IMO something else. Maybe it's more fair to call that a specification of the work you wanted it to perform.
But yeah, I like to reference the docs so it can refresh his memory. But I may have had the .md files updated even if I didn't explicitly provide/ask for it, but a refactor that touched particular areas.
But yeah, my .md references others, it also maybe helps that my dir is named docs/ and it lists it somewhere in .md files... maybe its just the way it is structured helps infer agent what to do.
Now, if you excuse my ramblings, here are a few ideas: I think we probably need new "programming" languages that are actually specification languages: reproducible default states, deterministic spec-to-code transformation.
I am not sure we actually need the determinism, but that would be a good property to have. At least with the same model/spec/temperature.
Now, prompts mutate the spec, which can also be edited by hand. You can already do this with the final code of course, but it is tedious as it contains many trivial implementation details.
But then, how do you handle bugfixes that need to persist during re-generation? Such as "Both Foo and foo can be present in the same directory if the file system is case-sensitive". If you add them to the spec, you are micro-managing implementation details again. So I think such "bug fixes" should be part of a prompt/spec that is automatically loaded when generating similar snippets (here, file I/O). It feels like I've just reinvented the concept of software libraries, though.
Any prompt-storing/sharing ideas floating around hit the same wall - they assume the text will be in English. It won't.
Our approach is to save LLM conversations but to not have them be part of the context.
have they though? I feel like 50% of the chat history is gettin in the way of the model that just created it half the time, let alone any future LLM.
Humans wont re-read an old chat history either unless very desperate for clues.
The few valuable nuggets of information in the chat history can probably be summarize into 3 bullet points and put in the docs or in code comments.
I really dont see the value.
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Much of the knowledge of writing the software is manifest and captured in those chats. and we share them so that we can learn from each other.
I actually miss what I had when I was playing around in TempleOS. All text in the OS is rich (you can toggle between the markup and the standard WYSIWYG view), so comments could have formatting, colours, images (bitmap or vector, great for diagrams), hell, even (aggressively spinning) 3D models.
The thing I used most was the collapsible sections, think <details> and <summary> in HTML. Although I appreciate plain text and would hate WYSIWYG rich text in my serious source code (not to mention binary data appended to the end of the source file for images and models), I can't help but pine for those features. Being able to just draw a real diagram and being able to edit it later in seconds as opposed to making some horrid ASCII art was awesome.
This is not doc, this is an .md file as a src to be used by LLMs to generate code. Therefore they are src files but in english.
The upside is that we are able to deploy more cognitive power into problems, security, edge cases, something that uses be to scarce. A lot of the people feeling insecure mainly because they benefited from that scarcity. But we will have more software deployed, I'd argue better, and larger, and this means the pie of software is getting bigger, the market is getting larger, deeper into the economy.
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I work in data and machine learning, it's pretty common to attach artifacts like charts, images, data outputs to a PR for me, but not include them in the codebase.
I'd only want to do that if it was going to be useful at some future point - do you go back to chats / transcripts etc months after a PR is merged to understand its design? (that sounds rhetorical, but I promise it's a genuine question!)
Why don't your chatbots just write clear, well documented code?
We don't look at binaries, we don't look at assembly, we work with high level languages. The specs were for developers to translate to programming primitives, but if the translation is largely automated, then the specs will become the code and we will need better ways to manage those, and I think the IDEs are gradually trending that way, look at all the most recent agentic dev tools, it surely follows that trend.
With respect to not having this piece on HN. If the author is seeing many organizations doing this practice, then why he would not share that empirical observation? is it only because it is against your pure world and abstractions? Just the recent leak for the Muse agent shows that most of the system behaviour is written in markdown.
Whether you like it or not, technology never care about purest and idealist, it evolve under pressure of deliveries and pragmatic choices, and if there is such a pressure, which the author claims to be, then HN is the medium to share it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, I don't know.
In any event: If we're talking past each other or simply not understanding one another then I thank you for a respectful conversation.
I don't think we are at a position to claim that documentation are the source, though to your point and the author's point as well, it serving more purpose now then what used to have.
I would say that this field is evolving really fast and we might consider and revise some practices. So I try to keep as much as open mind as possible.