Low effort contributions have always, and will ways be, unhelpful. We just now have a tool that generates them EVEN FASTER. :)
That must be frustrating for OSS maintainers, especially when contributing them can meaningfully move the needle on getting jobs, clients, etc.
Definitely makes sense to have rules in place to help dissuade it, but this brave new world isn't going away.
SchemaLoad · 2h ago
Not only is it even faster, they now disguise themselves to look like professionally written PRs with advanced understanding of the tech, while being filled with junior level bugs. So you have to super scrutinise it.
Which makes me wonder what the point of even taking PRs is, the reviewer could just run the AI themselves and do the same review but not have to go through the process of leaving comments and waiting for the submitter to resolve them.
Izkata · 2h ago
> they now disguise themselves
I'm imagining a funny possible outcome of this: Code linters/formatters get abandoned so personal style quirks can shine through, making code look visibly "not AI". If the quirks are consistent then it could also hint against it being faked.
jazzyjackson · 15m ago
To prove your humanity one must now make holocaust puns throughout their code
zulban · 2h ago
Indeed.
OSS maintainers may need some kind of response like the one I've written here that can be strategically dropped on the worst "bad AI" contributions. I certainly wrote this for myself to make my job easier, anyway.
gerdesj · 2h ago
Bubble goes pop!
I'm old enough to remember the global melt down in 2000ish and 2008. Oh and 1991 in the UK - lol, that's when I graduated. Take your money out of AI and stuff it under the mattress (gold if you are a magpie or blue stocks).
I have actually just spent out on a fairly handy GPU to stuff into one of our backup boxes at work. It has gobs of RAM and a fairly useful pair of CPUs and sits idle during the day.
AI via LLM is a thing but it isn't worth silly money and I think that a wind of change is on the way.
r_lee · 2h ago
What do you mean Nvidia isn't worth $4.5 trillion?!
elcritch · 2h ago
From the comments I was expecting a less well reasoned post. However, while I don't agree with some of his rationale, generally they seem reasonable.
The author isn't even condemning all AI generated MRs. Only ones meeting a few conditions.
zulban · 2h ago
Maybe the decent comments hadn't had time to bubble upwards yet. HN is a relatively higher quality online forum but... I still only expect half the commenters to have read the full post.
I'm curious to hear what rationale you partly disagree with.
credit_guy · 1h ago
I would just create an agent that provides the reviews. Instead of saying "your MR meets some of the criteria I have in this blog post", the agent can point very clearly at the exact criteria and how the merge request meets them, and can even make improvement suggestions. At the end, the author would review the AI generated review, to make sure everything sounds (and is) right. AI can be used in good ways, and bad ways. Show them the good way.
zulban · 1h ago
Based on personal use there's no way 2025 capabilities would do a good job of that task. I hope to get automated CR bots in my org working soon but today, it should definitely only be brief feedback that people can choose to ignore.
happyopossum · 2h ago
> Merge Request (MR): when a programmer submits proposed changes to a project in a structured way. This makes it easy for anyone to see the differences and review the changes. Sometimes called a Pull Request.
Ok, maybe I’m in a bubble, and my job is only coding-adjacent, but I’ve literally never heard a PR called an MR until today. Is this a new thing?
I'm more familiar with that term as I use Gitlab more than Github.
zulban · 1h ago
Indeed. I think I'll add a note that PR is GitHub.
Not only do I use GitLab more often in my org, but I genuinely think the term itself is more precise. I can be a bit of a stickler for vocabulary.
nkrisc · 1h ago
It’s all I heard in 2011 when I first entered the corporate world.
ares623 · 1h ago
Gitlab calls it merge requests
fennec-posix · 3h ago
On the flip-side of this, have had friends have their MRs against projects get "reviewed" by CoPilot which does a lot of unnecessary nit-picking and can often be incorrect at it. I get it helps project maintainers save time, but it just feels very dismissive to have your code be thrown to a robot to critique and comment on.
zulban · 2h ago
Rough.
I hope to get automated CR bots in my org working soon. But with 2025 capabilities it should definitely only be brief feedback that people can choose to ignore.
volkk · 4h ago
Mitchell Hashimoto did the same thing with Ghostty and I respect the decision. AI assistance is okay but writing slop with little to no effort to understand it simply to get a badge that you've contributed to OSS is a waste of time for everyone.
serf · 3h ago
>How can my feedback improve you as a software developer if you don't understand your own code?
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
collinmcnulty · 2h ago
If you don’t care about the reason for rejection, you don’t have to read it. Many people will ask for a reason and take even more of a maintainer’s time, so writing once and linking helps.
zulban · 2h ago
> Group education isn't my job
It doesn't sound like I'd like your dev culture. This is also explicitly part of the work objectives of me and my team.
> Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart
I prefer code that is dirt simple and stupid actually.
AdieuToLogic · 1h ago
>>How can my feedback improve you as a software developer if you don't understand your own code?
> Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
These decision points are orthogonal, in that the author identifies a social contract wherein a contributor must have an understanding of the change-set they submit in order for it to be a viable candidate. Determining if the submitted change-set is applicable/appropriate/correct and how to provide feedback to the contributor is a subsequent activity.
ath3nd · 2h ago
> Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project
The garbage in the case of an AI generated PR, is all of it. I will happily reject all of your slop and every future contribution from you if you can't follow the project's contribution guidelines.
If you don't like that, that's what forking is for.
> Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
Not only I don't want it but I have some ideas what you can do with it and wher this code can go. Also, the code is not yours. I can generate the same amount of garbage as you myself using the same tools, and it will also not be mine, yet I stop myself from doing it, because more garbage is the last thing this world needs.
> Be happy that someone wants to help
How full you must be of yourself to consider pointing an LLM towards a repo as helping.
Must have been very difficult to point Claude towards a repo and trash code goes brrr, something that every person with a pulse can do.
And I shudder at the the entitlement to think that OSS maintainers have to thank you for your godly prompt and 0 amount of effort.
Cheer2171 · 2h ago
> The garbage in the case of an AI generated PR, is all of it.
I promise you that you have merged PRs with AI generated code and/or comments. You just couldn't tell because the contributor wasn't a lazy idiot and actually thought about how to use the tools at their disposal to do good work like a professional.
I swear if we left things to you people, we'd all still be programming in assembler. Copilot generates most of my commit message drafts now. I end up accepting about half of them without needing any modifications. Sometimes they're shit. That's why I'm the developer and author. I always make sure whatever PR I submit in my name is something I'm proud to stand behind. But sorry that you don't want me on your project for that sin of the tools I chose to use for my work.
macawfish · 1h ago
This is a pretty nice document to put in AGENTS.md. Thank you!
zulban · 1h ago
I hope so! Feel free to reach out and let me know how it goes ;)
IshKebab · 3h ago
As far as I can tell this is entirely hypothetical and he hasn't actually received an AI generated MRs.
zulban · 2h ago
I absolutely have. I also wrote "One example I've seen" and "Common examples I see" so you either don't believe me or you didn't read what I wrote.
It's not 100% automated. The worst I've seen so far is 98% AI generated code from a real person. They write and submit the MR comment.
LtWorf · 3h ago
I have. Now what?
flyingspaceship · 3h ago
Reject anything made in bad faith and humor anything in good faith, as is everything
zulban · 2h ago
It can be hard to tell the difference in the workplace sometimes. Especially with juniors.
esafak · 3h ago
Prepare a test suite and lint file to ensure some quality control.
ath3nd · 2h ago
I have, and I have declined them all. Prompting an LLM and pointing it to somebody else's repo is not helpful, it's distracting and disrespectful, and also delusional to think that it helps the maintainers.
For a couple of bucks I can drown my own repos in low quality slop, so I don't need some well wishers to do it for me.
As a matter of fact I have yet to see an OSS maintainer that accepts AI generated slop MRs.
If you can't code, don't code and try to contribute to OSS projects. Claude or whatever trash one uses to make this outburst of garbage is not a substitute for skills. Don't waste mainteners' time and attention.
thekevan · 3h ago
We get it, some changes to a project are a bad idea. I feel like the overemphasis on AI generated ones is kind of posturing.
zulban · 2h ago
I got a MR the other day that should be 40 lines of code but it was 1000. It "mostly" worked. Do I pick apart this slop? Why should I? It's bad for the team and for the project.
It's hard to respond to that. I'm genuinely stumped. As I explain in the post, this is me trying to write something re-usable to share with people who do that to a team lead.
righthand · 3h ago
If it’s a low risk site (marketing page), I’ve been blindly approving them so that the engineer can go and fix it when prod breaks. Submit unreviewed garbage, get unreviewed garbage. I am not your quality gate keeper.
p1necone · 2h ago
Sounds like you're in a fairly unusual position if you're the one in charge of accepting PRs but the people submitting them are the ones who care about uptime/quality.
righthand · 2h ago
If you care about uptime you’re probably not generating code right? What am I missing?
positron26 · 2h ago
> Sometimes called a Pull Request
This is just advertising a combination of contrarian and self-righteous traits.
zulban · 1h ago
Sheesh, that's harsh.
Based on a comment that was more constructive than yours I changed it to:
> Also called a Pull Request like on GitHub.
My org mostly uses GitLab with MRs.
lawlessone · 3h ago
sorry if it's wrong to ask here, I've never joined an OSS project but kinda want to are there many out there that could use the help?
This is a repo of good beginner OSS projects to contribute to
zulban · 2h ago
Always fine to ask that question anywhere, in my opinion!
Good to note: contributing to code projects also occurs in closed source, big orgs. The same tools are used. My cases for example are from government and our projects usually aren't open source.
esafak · 3h ago
Prepare a pull request to fix bugs from the issue tracker of any library you like. If your pull request gets merged you've joined.
tonymet · 3h ago
sounds like the equivalent of people posting on social media that they are getting way too many DMS and dating requests. The coder "humble brag".
Just give feedback or decline the PR
dbalatero · 3h ago
no, it sounds like the author has encountered this enough that giving the same feedback over and over manually is a waste of their time. hence the post: "please read this, read your own pr, and get back to me when it's in a better state."
That must be frustrating for OSS maintainers, especially when contributing them can meaningfully move the needle on getting jobs, clients, etc.
Definitely makes sense to have rules in place to help dissuade it, but this brave new world isn't going away.
Which makes me wonder what the point of even taking PRs is, the reviewer could just run the AI themselves and do the same review but not have to go through the process of leaving comments and waiting for the submitter to resolve them.
I'm imagining a funny possible outcome of this: Code linters/formatters get abandoned so personal style quirks can shine through, making code look visibly "not AI". If the quirks are consistent then it could also hint against it being faked.
OSS maintainers may need some kind of response like the one I've written here that can be strategically dropped on the worst "bad AI" contributions. I certainly wrote this for myself to make my job easier, anyway.
I'm old enough to remember the global melt down in 2000ish and 2008. Oh and 1991 in the UK - lol, that's when I graduated. Take your money out of AI and stuff it under the mattress (gold if you are a magpie or blue stocks).
I have actually just spent out on a fairly handy GPU to stuff into one of our backup boxes at work. It has gobs of RAM and a fairly useful pair of CPUs and sits idle during the day.
AI via LLM is a thing but it isn't worth silly money and I think that a wind of change is on the way.
The author isn't even condemning all AI generated MRs. Only ones meeting a few conditions.
I'm curious to hear what rationale you partly disagree with.
Ok, maybe I’m in a bubble, and my job is only coding-adjacent, but I’ve literally never heard a PR called an MR until today. Is this a new thing?
I'm more familiar with that term as I use Gitlab more than Github.
Not only do I use GitLab more often in my org, but I genuinely think the term itself is more precise. I can be a bit of a stickler for vocabulary.
I hope to get automated CR bots in my org working soon. But with 2025 capabilities it should definitely only be brief feedback that people can choose to ignore.
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
It doesn't sound like I'd like your dev culture. This is also explicitly part of the work objectives of me and my team.
> Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart
I prefer code that is dirt simple and stupid actually.
> Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
These decision points are orthogonal, in that the author identifies a social contract wherein a contributor must have an understanding of the change-set they submit in order for it to be a viable candidate. Determining if the submitted change-set is applicable/appropriate/correct and how to provide feedback to the contributor is a subsequent activity.
The garbage in the case of an AI generated PR, is all of it. I will happily reject all of your slop and every future contribution from you if you can't follow the project's contribution guidelines.
If you don't like that, that's what forking is for.
> Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
Not only I don't want it but I have some ideas what you can do with it and wher this code can go. Also, the code is not yours. I can generate the same amount of garbage as you myself using the same tools, and it will also not be mine, yet I stop myself from doing it, because more garbage is the last thing this world needs.
> Be happy that someone wants to help
How full you must be of yourself to consider pointing an LLM towards a repo as helping.
Must have been very difficult to point Claude towards a repo and trash code goes brrr, something that every person with a pulse can do.
And I shudder at the the entitlement to think that OSS maintainers have to thank you for your godly prompt and 0 amount of effort.
I promise you that you have merged PRs with AI generated code and/or comments. You just couldn't tell because the contributor wasn't a lazy idiot and actually thought about how to use the tools at their disposal to do good work like a professional.
I swear if we left things to you people, we'd all still be programming in assembler. Copilot generates most of my commit message drafts now. I end up accepting about half of them without needing any modifications. Sometimes they're shit. That's why I'm the developer and author. I always make sure whatever PR I submit in my name is something I'm proud to stand behind. But sorry that you don't want me on your project for that sin of the tools I chose to use for my work.
It's not 100% automated. The worst I've seen so far is 98% AI generated code from a real person. They write and submit the MR comment.
For a couple of bucks I can drown my own repos in low quality slop, so I don't need some well wishers to do it for me.
As a matter of fact I have yet to see an OSS maintainer that accepts AI generated slop MRs.
https://news.itsfoss.com/curl-ai-slop/
https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/10/ai_slop_bug_reports/
https://biggo.com/news/202508220113_Ghostty_Requires_AI_Disc...
If you can't code, don't code and try to contribute to OSS projects. Claude or whatever trash one uses to make this outburst of garbage is not a substitute for skills. Don't waste mainteners' time and attention.
It's hard to respond to that. I'm genuinely stumped. As I explain in the post, this is me trying to write something re-usable to share with people who do that to a team lead.
This is just advertising a combination of contrarian and self-righteous traits.
Based on a comment that was more constructive than yours I changed it to:
> Also called a Pull Request like on GitHub.
My org mostly uses GitLab with MRs.
This is a repo of good beginner OSS projects to contribute to
Good to note: contributing to code projects also occurs in closed source, big orgs. The same tools are used. My cases for example are from government and our projects usually aren't open source.
Just give feedback or decline the PR