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469 points samuelstros | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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gervwyk ◴[] No.44998759[source]
We’re considering building a coding agent for Lowdefy[1], a framework that lets you build web apps with YAML config.

For those who’ve built coding agents: do you think LLMs are better suited for generating structured config vs. raw code?

My theory is that agents producing valid YAML/JSON schemas could be more reliable than code generation. The output is constrained, easier to validate, and when it breaks, you can actually debug it.

I keep seeing people creating apps with vibe coder tools but then get stuck when they need to modify the generated code.

Curious if others think config-based approaches are more practical for AI-assisted development.

[1] https://github.com/lowdefy/lowdefy

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1. pglevy ◴[] No.45004566[source]
Mine is a much simpler use case but sharing in case it's useful. I wanted to be able to quickly generate and iterate on user flows during design collaboration. So I use some boilerplate HTML/CSS and have the LLM generate an "outline" (basically a config file) and then generate the HTML from that. This way I can make quick adjustments in the outline and just have it refresh the code when needed to avoid too much back forth with the chat.

Overall, it has been working pretty well. I did make a tweak I haven't pushed yet to make it always writes the outline to a file first (instead of just terminal). And I've also started adding slash commands to the instructions so I can type things like "/create some flow" and then just "/refresh" (instead of "pardon me, would you mind refreshing that flow now?").

https://github.com/pglevy/breadboarding-kit