Re: A quick thought on AI-generated bulk PRs

I'm unsure what you're seeing. I'm not aware of any cases of "Run a
prompt in "yolo" mode to make massive changes across a bunch
of repos all at once." I think we might get there, but we're not there
yet, or maybe someone is sending PRs I'm not seeing? Can you point to
such a thing? There are instances of people sending out PRs one at a
time across different repos to do something similar that needs doing.
 Sylwester has been converting docs from apt to markdown in multiple
repos, and I've been using LLMs to make our docs actually legible. BUt
this is happening one repo at a time. However, most LLM assisted PRs
focus on fixing something idiosyncratic to one plugin or library, not
something that's broken across all repos.

We have had long-standing issues with failure to review PRs in a
timely fashion. And the recent increase in LLM-assisted PRs which has
increased code velocity has made this failing more obvious. But the
problem is not that we are getting more valuable PRs that fix bugs and
make improvements we've needed for years. The problem is that we're
not reviewing them. Guillaume has, I think. set up a bot to
auto-review PRs with Clause. At least I don't know how to otherwise
explain the speed with which his reviews are coming lately. Perhaps he
can confirm? In any case, that is helpful.

I think we long ago passed the point where GitHub emails were useful,
even before LLM PRs became a thing. I suggest investigating dashboards
that show activity and PR status across the project. Right now the
biggest hole is simply failing to notice that a PR needs review
because it's in a plugin I haven't looked at lately.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 2:29 PM Olivier Lamy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
> Just to be clear upfront: I’m totally pro-AI tools and use them myself.
> But I’ve noticed a pattern lately with bulk changes that I think we
> need to tweak.
> Right now, the workflow looks a bit like this:
> 1. Run a prompt in "yolo" mode to make massive changes across a bunch
> of repos all at once.
> 2. Merge the PRs almost immediately.
> 3. Realise the initial prompt missed something, which triggers another
> massive batch of PRs to fix the first batch.
> 4. back to 1.
>
> The main issue here is notification fatigue. We’re getting blasted
> with so many emails and alerts that it’s impossible to keep up. When
> that happens, we tune out the noise and stop reviewing entirely, which
> is exactly when real issues slip through the cracks.
>
> Since AI is incredibly useful for these kinds of bulk updates, I think
> we can do this more effectively/wizely.
> Could we try this approach instead?
>
> Start small: Run the prompt and generate a PR for just one repo first.
> Review: Have the community conduct a thorough, in-depth review of that
> single AI-generated PR.
> Refine: Tweak the prompt based on the feedback. Once it's solid, we
> can save it as a reusable "skill" that the community trusts.
>
> Scale up: Once the single repo is good to go, then roll the prompt out
> to the rest of the repos.
>
> I think slowing down just a little bit at the start will cut down on
> the noise, save us a lot of context-switching, and make us all way
> more confident in the code we're merging.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Olivier
>
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-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold
[email protected]