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If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

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192 points imasl42 | 5 comments | 20 Sep 25 04:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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rollulus ◴[20 Sep 25 09:50 UTC] No.45311885[source]▶
I have received a few LLM produced PRs from peers from adjacent teams, in good faith but not familiar with the project, and they increasingly infuriate me. They were all garbage, but there’s a great asymmetry: it costs my peers nothing to generate them, it costs me precious time to refute them. And what can I do really? Saying “it’s irreparable garbage because the syntax might be right but it’s conceptually nonsense” but that’s not the most constructive take.
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1. esperent ◴[20 Sep 25 10:01 UTC] No.45311938[source]▶
You could use an LLM to give you advice on how to present that take in a more constructive manner.

Partially sarcastic but I do personally use LLMs to guide my communication in very limited cases:

1. It's purely business related, and

2. I'm feeling too emotionally invested (or more likely, royally pissed off) and don't trust myself to write in a professional manner, and

3. I genuinely want the message to sound cold, corporate, and unemotional

Number 3 would fit you here. These people are not being respectful to you in presenting code for review that respects your time. Why should you take the time to write back personally?

It should be noted that this accounts for maybe 5% of my business communications, and I'm careful not to let that number grow.

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2. walleeee ◴[20 Sep 25 12:15 UTC] No.45312677[source]▶
> Why should you take the time to write back personally?

Because it's 3 sentences, if you want to be way more polite and verbose than necessary.

"I will close PRs if they appear to be largely LLM-generated. I am always happy to review something with care and attention if it shows the same qualities. Thanks!"

The idea is to get your coworkers to stop sending you AI slop, send them AI slop in retaliation?

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3. esperent ◴[20 Sep 25 16:12 UTC] No.45314589[source]▶
> if they appear to be largely LLM-generated

And then what if the person denies it?

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4. bluefirebrand ◴[21 Sep 25 05:38 UTC] No.45320325{3}[source]▶
Run it up the chain

They're either lying about using AI, or they're incompetent enough to produce AI quality (read: Garbage) code, either way the company should let them go

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5. walleeee ◴[21 Sep 25 09:59 UTC] No.45321409{4}[source]▶
That would be the nuclear option, but if you have any rapport at all with the person or team in question, you could also just pull them aside, ask if they are under unusual pressure to show progress, and make it clear that you get it, and you want to help, but that you can't if you're drowning in AI slop code review. I imagine it's a junior doing this, in which case it's in their career interest to stop and start acting like a professional. I've had seniors tell me more or less the same thing, in the pre-llm era: "slow down and get it right." Sometimes you just need to hear that.