> still hallucinates standard-library types and methods more-often-than-not whenever I ask it to generate code for me
Not an argument, unsolicited advice: my guess is you are asking it to do too much work at once. Make much smaller changes. Try to ask for as roughly much as you would put into one git commit (per best practices)-- for me that's usually editing a dozen or less lines of code.
> Once a project grows past hundreds of KB of significant source I honestly don’t know how us humans are meant to get LLMs to work on them. Please educate me.
https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider
Edit: The author of aider puts the percentage of the code written by LLMs for each release. It's been 70%+. But some problems are still easier to handle yourself. https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/releases
In Ask HN: SWEs how do you future-proof your career in light of LLMs?Aider-AI
aider
Python2023–2026
Aider-AI / aider
aider
aider is AI pair programming in your terminal
54Distinct people
127Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
50.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
aider is AI pair programming in your terminal
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I recommend you look at tools like Aider or Codebuff... sure they need to call some LLM at some point (could be your own, could be external), but the key thing that they are…
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- anomalyco/opencode · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- morph-labs/rift · linked in 2 of the same discussions
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From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 12, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
AI Pair Programming in Your Terminal
Aider lets you pair program with LLMs to start a new project or build on your existing codebase.
Features
Cloud and local LLMs
Aider works best with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, DeepSeek R1 & Chat V3, OpenAI o1, o3-mini & GPT-4o, but can connect to almost any LLM, including local models.
Maps your codebase
Aider makes a map of your entire codebase, which helps it work well in larger projects.
100+ code languages
Aider works with most popular programming languages: python, javascript, rust, ruby, go, cpp, php, html, css, and dozens more.
Git integration
Aider automatically commits changes with sensible commit messages. Use familiar git tools to easily diff, manage and undo AI changes.
Use in your IDE
Use aider from within your favorite IDE or editor. Ask for changes by adding comments to your code and aider will get to work.
Images & web pages
Add images and web pages to the chat to provide visual context, screenshots, reference docs, etc.
Voice-to-code
Speak with aider about your code! Request new features, test cases or bug fixes using your voice and let aider implement the changes.
Linting & testing
Automatically lint and test your code every time aider makes changes. Aider can fix problems detected by your linters and test suites.
Copy/paste to web chat
Work with any LLM via its web chat interface. Aider streamlines copy/pasting code context and edits back and forth with a browser.
Getting Started
python -m pip install aider-install
aider-install
# Change directory into your codebase
cd /to/your/project
# DeepSeek
aider --model deepseek --api-key deepseek=<key>
# Claude 3.7 Sonnet
aider --model sonnet --api-key anthropic=<key>
# o3-mini
aider --model o3-mini --api-key openai=<key>
See the installation instructions and usage documentation for more details.
More Information
Documentation
Installation Guide
Usage Guide
Tutorial Videos
Connecting to LLMs
Configuration Options
Troubleshooting
FAQ
Community & Resources
LLM Leaderboards
GitHub Repository
Discord Community
Release notes
Blog
Kind Words From Users
"My life has changed... Aider... It's going to rock your world." — Eric S. Raymond on X
"The best free open source AI coding assistant." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
"The best AI coding assistant so far." — Matthew Berman on YouTube
"Aider ... has easily quadrupled my coding productivity." — SOLAR_FIELDS on Hacker News
"It's a cool workflow... Aider's ergonomics are perfect for me." — qup on Hacker News
"It's really like having your senior developer live right in your Git repo - truly amazing!" — rappster on GitHub
"What an amazing tool. It's incredible." — valyagolev on GitHub
"Aider is such an astounding thing!" — cgrothaus on GitHub
"It was WAY faster than I would be getting off the ground and making the first few working versions." — Daniel Feldman on X
"THANK YOU for Aider! It really feels like a glimpse into the future of coding." — derwiki on Hacker News
"It's just amazing. It is freeing me to do things I felt were out my comfort zone before." — Dougie on Discord
"This project is stellar." — funkytaco on GitHub
"Amazing project, definitely the best AI coding assistant I've used." — joshuavial on GitHub
"I absolutely love using Aider ... It makes software development feel so much lighter as an experience." — principalideal0 on Discord
"I have been recovering from ... surgeries ... aider ... has allowed me to continue productivity." — codeninja on Reddit
"I am an aider addict. I'm getting so much more work done, but in less time." — dandandan on Discord
"Aider... blows everything else out of the water hands down, there's no competition whatsoever." — SystemSculpt on Discord
"Aider is amazing, coupled with Sonnet 3.5 it's quite mind blowing." — Josh Dingus on Discord
"Hands down, this is the best AI coding assistant tool so far." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
"[Aider] changed my daily coding workflows. It's mind-blowing how ...(it)... can change your life." — maledorak on Discord
"Best agent for actual dev work in existing codebases." — Nick Dobos on X
"One of my favorite pieces of software. Blazing trails on new paradigms!" — Chris Wall on X
"Aider has been revolutionary for me and my work." — Starry Hope on X
"Try aider! One of the best ways to vibe code." — Chris Wall on X
"Freaking love Aider." — hztar on Hacker News
"Aider is hands down the best. And it's free and opensource." — AriyaSavakaLurker on Reddit
"Aider is also my best friend." — jzn21 on Reddit
"Try Aider, it's worth it." — jorgejhms on Reddit
"I like aider :)" — Chenwei Cui on X
"Aider is the precision tool of LLM code gen... Minimal, thoughtful and capable of surgical changes ... while keeping the developer in control." — Reilly Sweetland on X
"Cannot believe aider vibe coded a 650 LOC feature across service and cli today in 1 shot." - autopoietist on Discord
"Oh no the secret is out! Yes, Aider is the best coding tool around. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone." — Joshua D Vander Hook on X
"thanks to aider, i have started and finished three personal projects within the last two days" — joseph stalzyn on X
"Been using aider as my daily driver for over a year ... I absolutely love the tool, like beyond words." — koleok on Discord
"Aider ... is the tool to benchmark against." — BeetleB on Hacker News
"aider is really cool" — kache on X
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
41 sourcesI have long relied on a print-debug function I wrote for python called dump(). You do dump(foo) and it will print out "foo: value". Where the variable name "foo" is magically pulled out of the source code and "value" is a json-dump of its value. So dicts look pretty, like the example below.
This is similar to the "debug f-strings" introduced in python 3.8: print(f"{foo=}"). But it's much easier to type dump(foo) and you get prettier output for complex types.
x = 3
foo = dict(bar=1, baz=dict(hello="world"))
dump(x)
dump(foo)
# prints...
x: 3
foo:
{
"bar": 1,
"baz": {
"hello": "world"
}
}
https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/blob/main/aider/dump.py
In Don’t look down on print debuggingThis account was spamming Python repositories with the same type of low value obvious backdoor spam.[1]
Full list of attempted pull requests (all deleted seemingly by GitHub):
1 https://www.github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/pull/7638
2 https://www.github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/130423
3 https://www.github.com/celery/celery/pull/9407
4 https://www.github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey/pull/921
5 https://www.github.com/crewAIInc/crewAI/pull/1582
6 https://www.github.com/cumulo-autumn/StreamDiffusion/pull/177
7 https://www.github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/pull/16646
8 https://www.github.com/Aider-AI/aider/pull/2343
9 https://www.github.com/aboul3la/Sublist3r/pull/383
10 https://www.github.com/plotly/dash/pull/3073
11 https://www.github.com/soimort/you-get/pull/3034
12 https://www.github.com/streamlink/
Read the rest
streamlink/pull/6290
13 https://www.github.com/jumpserver/jumpserver/pull/14440
14 https://www.github.com/junyanz/pytorch-CycleGAN-and-pix2pix/pull/1684
15 https://www.github.com/kornia/kornia/pull/3069
16 https://www.github.com/langflow-ai/langflow/pull/4520
17 https://www.github.com/exo-explore/exo/pull/432
18 https://www.github.com/PostHog/posthog/pull/26144
19 https://www.github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/pull/15987
20 https://www.github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/10822
21 https://www.github.com/pyg-team/pytorch_geometric/pull/9777
22 https://www.github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/pull/8379
23 https://www.github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/pull/3441
24 https://www.github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/pull/3092
25 https://www.github.com/locustio/locust/pull/2980
26 https://www.github.com/matterport/Mask_RCNN/pull/3057
27 https://www.github.com/Stability-AI/generative-models/pull/425
28 https://www.github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/11520
[1] https://play.clickhouse.com/play?user=play#U0VMRUNUICogRlJPT...
use https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider
clone any repo, use aider for Q&A about the code.
Use aider to add features to the repo and do experiments with the code.
Its a very interactive way to learn
In Ask HN: What tools and practices have helped you work better as a developer?You may want to peek at the system prompts Aider uses. I think this is part of the secret sauce that makes it so good.
https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/blob/main/aider/coders/edi...
excerpt:
"""
Act as an expert software developer.
Always use best practices when coding.
Respect and use existing conventions, libraries, etc that are already present in the code base.
{lazy_prompt}
Take requests for changes to the supplied code.
If the request is ambiguous, ask questions.
Always reply to the user in the same language they are using.
Once you understand the request you MUST:
""" ... etc...
In Everything I built with Claude Artifacts this weekGoing through middle layers has pros and cons. You'll likely find better docs and experience by going through the official APIs directly. Maybe start with OpenAI and/or Claude official libraries, both provide pretty good docs.
If you really must use a wrapper, a strategy I use is to look into open-source apps I like and see what they are using. Aider for instance seems to be using this "litellm" thing... If I were to need cross API support for AI, I would probably look into that [1]. llm uses opeanai directly [2]. Etc, etc.
--
1: https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/blob/e76704e261647348fd7c1...
2: https://github.com/simonw/llm/blob/d654c9521235a737e59a4f1d7...
In Ask HN: What are some good APIs to interact with large language models?aider
llm of choice
https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider
In Ask HN: Best AI Code Assistant?obligatory plug for aider:
https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider
https://aider.chat/docs/usage.html
I run aider in a terminal, and separately review and manually code in VSCode. Usint the `--no-auto-commits` switch means that I can immediately view the diffs in the nice VSCode diff view and it's very easy to do hybrid manual and AI coding.
There are plenty of handy settings (see /help), for example you can /ask questions about your code.
`aider --no-auto-commits --cache-prompts --no-stream --cache-keepalive-pings 6 --no-suggest-shell-commands`
In Code Smarter, Not Harder: Developing with Cursor and Claude SonnetSonnet 3.5 has a max output of 8192 tokens[0].
I break most tasks down into parts. Aider[1] is essential to my workflow and helps with this as well, and it's a fantastic tool to learn from. In fact, as of v0.52 I'm able to remove some of my custom code to run and test.
Started playing around with adding Nous[2] as well (aider is its code editing agent), but not enough that I'm using it practically yet.
[0] https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/about-claude/models
[1] https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider/
[2] https://github.com/TrafficGuard/nous
In Anthropic publishes the 'system prompts' that make Claude tick> Thanks! "Nearby edits" mean edits in the same file or the whole workspace?
For the autocomplete, in the same file. So proposing adding more logging when you add a few statements, changing an error check, adding something to the class def or constructor.
They do have a multi-file editing thing called "composer" I think, which I used to make larger changes to an app (e.g. add a new page that lists all the X, and it creates that and the links to it in the other pages).
You might also be interested in aider https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider for larger changes.
In Avante.nvim: Use Your Neovim Like Using Cursor AI IDEGartner "Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants" (2024)
https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2IKO4MPE&ct=240819...
Additional criteria for assessing AI code assistants from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40478539 re: Text-to-SQL bemchmarks :
codefuse-ai/Awesome-Code-LLM > Analysis of AI-Generated Code, Benchmarks:
https://github.com/codefuse-ai/Awesome-Code-LLM :
> 8.2. Benchmarks: *
Integrated Benchmarks,
Program Synthesis,
Visually Grounded Program Synthesis,
Code Reasoning and QA,
Text-to-SQL,
Code Translation,
Program Repair,
Code Summarization,
Defect/Vulnerability Detection,
Code Retrieval,
Type Inference,
Commit Message Generation,
Repo-Level Coding*
OT did not assess:
Aider:
https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider :
> Aider works best with GPT-4o & Claude 3.5 Sonnet and can connect to almost any LLM.
https://a
Read the rest
ider.chat/ :
> Aider has one of the top scores on SWE Bench. SWE Bench is a challenging software engineering benchmark where aider solved real GitHub issues from popular open source projects like django, scikitlearn, matplotlib, etc
SWE Bench benchmark:
https://www.swebench.com/
`pipx install aider-chat`
(https://aider.chat/docs/install/pipx.html will install it globally on your system within its own python environment. This way you can use aider to work on any python project, even if that project has conflicting dependencies.)
I run it with these settings:
`aider --sonnet --no-auto-commits--cache-prompts`
if you want to run the most bleeding edge version at the same time without breaking anything,
`pipx install --suffix=@dev git+https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider.git`
then run it with
`aider@dev`
`aider@dev` ... with your desired settings
In I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated codealso, aider has added experimental support for prompt caching: https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider/issues/1086#issuecomm...
I really like the control you get with aider over the LLM context. You can /add or /drop source code, markdown notes. You can /clear the chat. /tokens shows you the context and the cost, you can see what each prompt will cost you.
I find aider best used in conjunction with a git diff view in VSCode, I run aider with --no-auto-commits and then manually review each time in VSCode.
I'm keen to learn any AI coding workflows if anyone has any links. I've benefitted greatly from tips such as using type hints and documentation for the LLM's benefit.
In Fine-tuning now available for GPT-4otools like aider [0] maintain a large context with minimal token usage by reading a repo's .git folder. impressive results
[0] https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider
In Fine-tuning now available for GPT-4oA feature comparison to https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider would be great.
Is this just a non interactive version of this kind of agent?
In Show HN: Patchwork – Open-source framework to automate development gruntworkShowing the 15 most recent of 41 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.