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0 pointsGalanwe5mo ago0 comments

I usually do that in a 2 step process. Instead of giving the full source code to the model, I will ask it to write a comprehensive, detailed, description of the architecture, intent, and details (including filenames) of the codebase to a Markdown file.

Then for each subsequent conversation I would ask the model to use this file as reference.

The overall idea is the same, but going through an intermediate file allows for manual amendments to the file in case the model consistently forgets some things, it also gives it a bit of an easier time to find information and reason about the codebase in a pre-summarized format.

It's sort of like giving a very rich metadata and index of the codebase to the model instead of dumping the raw data to it.

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kridsdale35mo ago

My special hack on top of what you suggested: Ask it to draw the whole codebase in graphviz compatible graphing markup language. There are various tools out there to render this as an SVG or whatever, to get an actual map of the system. Very helpful when diving in to a big new area.

rjmunro5mo ago

You can use mermaid format instead of graphviz, then paste it into a markdown file and github will render it inline.

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