You don't need documentation or the 3rd party memory systems. The code IS the documentation.
All this stuff is LLM rube goldberg machines. It just pollutes context.
I barely use AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md these days. And where they remain, it's super basic high level stuff.
I'm honestly still kicking myself in the ass on many projects where I did something similar to this. I kept tons of markdown docs and decision docs. Now those things are just causing problems because they got stale. Even after having sessions of reconciling documentation, the LLM just gets confused.
>> You don't need documentation or the 3rd party memory systems. The code IS the documentation.
We have heard this nonsense from the "we don't need to write comments, code should be self-documenting" types for decades. It was wrong in that context, and it is wrong in this one.
Code tells you how a system works. It does not tell you why it works that way. That is what memory is for. It exists so that your AI does not keep undoing past decisions when it writes or refactors code.
I've had the LLMs undo past decisions MORE from the docs than from having no docs.
Old decisions always end up in the docs. If the LLM gets a whiff of an old decision, but doesn't get the update to that decision, well now you're doing things the old way again.
kaydub · · focus · HN ↗
All this stuff is LLM rube goldberg machines. It just pollutes context.
I barely use AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md these days. And where they remain, it's super basic high level stuff.
I'm honestly still kicking myself in the ass on many projects where I did something similar to this. I kept tons of markdown docs and decision docs. Now those things are just causing problems because they got stale. Even after having sessions of reconciling documentation, the LLM just gets confused.
enraged_camel · · focus · HN ↗
We have heard this nonsense from the "we don't need to write comments, code should be self-documenting" types for decades. It was wrong in that context, and it is wrong in this one.
Code tells you how a system works. It does not tell you why it works that way. That is what memory is for. It exists so that your AI does not keep undoing past decisions when it writes or refactors code.
kaydub · · focus · HN ↗
Old decisions always end up in the docs. If the LLM gets a whiff of an old decision, but doesn't get the update to that decision, well now you're doing things the old way again.