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I've observed the same thing where the new models want to run obscene bash commands or python scripts which are completely unreadable and utilise every option f

I've observed the same thing where the new models want to run obscene bash commands or python scripts which are completely unreadable and utilise every option flag that exists. It's impossible to review. These commands are less readable than regex.

chambored 6d ago
I noticed that too so I appended to Claude Code’s system prompt a reminder to use the standard read/write tools, but since Claude Code switched to default auto-mode, I’ve seen it imply that the auto-mode tooling encourages the use of bash-only commands (sed, python, etc) which has a whole slew of negative side affects.
- IceDane 6d ago
  Yes.. this happened recently. I basically always use auto mode, and when I asked it why it kept editing code with python, it explained that this is part of its prompt when auto mode is turned on. I can only assume that's because their safety verification model is better at such snippets or something, but it means that the whole write tool they have which actually shows you the changes as they happen is just unused and it makes it more annoying to follow along.
ninalanyon 6d ago
If these tools are as clever as they seem then why not just tell them to rewrite the code in a more review friendly style? I only dabble in the use of LLMs to generate code for hobby programming (I'm retired from software development) so I don't use any specialised tools. I almost always have to tell ChatGPT (via Duck AI usually) to rewrite several times even when it has produced a workable script just because it has often used some unnecessarily roundabout way of achieving something. Usually with extra prompting I can get something that is both more efficient and more readable.
- lanyard-textile 6d ago
  I get around this by asking it to stage changes in reviewable groups. I make commits based on these -- or ask the LLM to make changes to the "staged changes" only.
iJohnDoe 5d ago
Cursor was pretty amazing until it started going to shit. High prices, UI changes, moving MCP settings, and moving other things around. Most importantly was the Index change. It was a very unique thing to Cursor that you could use .cursorignore to control what it sees and then index the directory. Then the built in Cursor AI harness could find code and files like magic. They have since obscured the Index feature out of sight recently and I’m not sure how it even works anymore. This granular control not only helped with privacy, but it also helped make everything more efficient because the AI didn’t waste time and tokens looking at files that aren’t relevant. So, now, like everyone is talking about, we have really inefficient ways of how the AI is reading files because there is no first-class approaches. Also, agree with consensus that Astra is weird.

chambored 6d ago

I noticed that too so I appended to Claude Code’s system prompt a reminder to use the standard read/write tools, but since Claude Code switched to default auto-mode, I’ve seen it imply that the auto-mode tooling encourages the use of bash-only commands (sed, python, etc) which has a whole slew of negative side affects.

IceDane 6d ago
Yes.. this happened recently. I basically always use auto mode, and when I asked it why it kept editing code with python, it explained that this is part of its prompt when auto mode is turned on. I can only assume that's because their safety verification model is better at such snippets or something, but it means that the whole write tool they have which actually shows you the changes as they happen is just unused and it makes it more annoying to follow along.

ninalanyon 6d ago

If these tools are as clever as they seem then why not just tell them to rewrite the code in a more review friendly style? I only dabble in the use of LLMs to generate code for hobby programming (I'm retired from software development) so I don't use any specialised tools. I almost always have to tell ChatGPT (via Duck AI usually) to rewrite several times even when it has produced a workable script just because it has often used some unnecessarily roundabout way of achieving something. Usually with extra prompting I can get something that is both more efficient and more readable.

lanyard-textile 6d ago
I get around this by asking it to stage changes in reviewable groups. I make commits based on these -- or ask the LLM to make changes to the "staged changes" only.

iJohnDoe 5d ago

Cursor was pretty amazing until it started going to shit. High prices, UI changes, moving MCP settings, and moving other things around. Most importantly was the Index change. It was a very unique thing to Cursor that you could use .cursorignore to control what it sees and then index the directory. Then the built in Cursor AI harness could find code and files like magic. They have since obscured the Index feature out of sight recently and I’m not sure how it even works anymore. This granular control not only helped with privacy, but it also helped make everything more efficient because the AI didn’t waste time and tokens looking at files that aren’t relevant. So, now, like everyone is talking about, we have really inefficient ways of how the AI is reading files because there is no first-class approaches. Also, agree with consensus that Astra is weird.