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Lauren Tan urges banning most code comments because coding agents copy them

1 article1 sourcesince Oct 13Last article 2h ago ·

Overview

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Lauren Tan (@poteto) says coding agents copy existing code comments, so temporary workaround notes spread through codebases, and recommends banning and deleting most code comments.

He points to pstack's /no-comments skill as a tool to find and prune useless comments. He says comments that explain real quirks, such as a browser quirk, should be kept.

Tan also suggests a prompt that uses a swarm of agents to identify comments to prune and to recommend refactoring or deletion for each workaround. The report is a single X post, and no tests or results from applying the approach are given.

Written by AI from the articles below · updated Oct 13, 7:37 PM ET

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Latest developmentOct 13, 7:24 PM ET
Lauren Tan urges banning most code comments to stop agents copying them

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The articles in this story. Times are ET.

Oct 13
  1. laurenX
    Lauren Tan urges banning most code comments to stop agents copying them

    AILauren Tan (@poteto) says agents copy existing code comments, so temporary workaround notes spread through codebases and should mostly be removed. She recommends pstack's /no-comments skill to find and prune useless comments while keeping ones that explain real quirks, such as a browser quirk. She also suggests a prompt that uses a swarm to identify comments to prune and recommend refactoring or deletion for each workaround.

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