Ask HN: What tools and AI copilots help onboard developers to new codebases?

thought experiment: If you could ask an AI one question about your codebase to help onboard developers, what would it be and why?

2 points | by vinaypanghal 3 hours ago

2 comments

  • austin-cheney 3 hours ago
    Why the fuck is there so much indecision?

    If you want to minimize learning time impose safeguards around simplicity (fewer) and be extremely draconian about it. This is extremely upsetting to many developers because it eliminates all their favorite code styles and expressiveness.

  • devsoul 3 hours ago
    Here are some of the tools which you may like:

    - GitHub Copilot - CodeSee - Sourcegraph - Swimm - GitLoop - bloop - Codex Atlas

    If I could ask an AI one question about a codebase to help onboard developers, it would be:

    What are the main architectural patterns and dependencies in this codebase, and how do they interact with each other?

    • vinaypanghal 2 hours ago
      That’s a great list—thanks for sharing! Tools like Github CoPilot have been game-changers for me when it comes to simple tasks codebases. I’ve heard a lot about GitLoop recently, curious to hear your experience with it—does it handle large repositories well?