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ccraigsmitham about 3 hours ago 24 commentsRead Article on getquality.md

FR version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

Hello all, I created QUALITY.md to help build a holistic quality evaluation process for my projects. Turns out it's also ideal for loop engineering. I'm hoping this provides a valuable contribution to the conversation around quality and craft and having AI help us in the effort. I hope to shift the mindset from a reactive/review/repair mindset to a proactive care mindset.

Give it a go. I look forward to your thoughts/comments/feedback!

Website: https://getquality.md GitHub: https://github.com/qualitymd/quality.md

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Discussion (24 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

MisterKentabout 3 hours ago
Is this really where we've landed? I refuse to believe that any of this markdown insanity will continue indefinitely.
pimlottcabout 2 hours ago
It's insane to me that the "fix" for AI errors is adding more "PLEASE PLEASE DO BETTER" to the prompt
chrismorganabout 2 hours ago
If it makes you feel any better, the Markdown part is optional (and has no semantics). Somehow it feels about right that the Markdown file can actually just be a YAML file with the wrong extension.

(Actually, to be more specific, a YAML file with no directives, explicitly-signalled start-of-document-content, and followed by a second null document. I will note that frontmatter syntax is not specified; the non-normative Appendix B is the only place that suggests it means prefix and suffix --- lines. And no, frontmatter is not part of Markdown, or CommonMark, and is in fact incompatible with both. And it’s invalid YAML too, the end-of-frontmatter line should be ... to indicate end of document without starting a new document.)

willcodeforfooabout 3 hours ago
I thought the same about Yaml and Kubernetes/Helm…
nextaccounticabout 2 hours ago
it's looking like llms are interpreters, and markdown plus english text is the language of choice to run non deterministic programs on it
blooalien7 minutes ago
> it's looking like llms are interpreters, and markdown plus english text is the language of choice to run non deterministic programs on it

That's actually a pretty good clear way of putting it for the typical nerdy "programmer minded" individual.

8cvor6j844qw_d6about 2 hours ago
QUALITY.md feels similar to CONSTITUTION.md

Looks like unless something better comes up, we'll be stuck with it for a while.

I find markdown useful for repo-specific conventions, especially skills.

formerly_provenabout 1 hour ago
> I find text useful for repo-specific conventions, especially skills.
stronglikedan39 minutes ago
sure, but structured text like markdown is even more useful, since humans can parse and understand it as easily as skills can
vadanskyabout 2 hours ago
It already refuses to read the AGENT.md/CLAUDE.md files, what's the point of giving it even more markdown it won't read until you yell at it.
cyanydeezabout 2 hours ago
it is until we define real consistent deterministic gates and protocols. It really is a symptom of the lack of concerted effort. Everyone has a personal preference on how to shove the context and most of them are just "here's some good text I've found to work in my context"
dofmabout 3 hours ago
The one thing I do not understand is that here you say:

"Ensure stakeholders are aligned on what matters most and why"

But it is instructions for LLMs, right? A way to describe something that the humans know and the LLMs don't.

LLMs literally cannot be stakeholders, by definition.

craigsmithamabout 1 hour ago
THe problem is that humans often don't know - this is as much about encouraging getting the humans aligned as the agents. Completely agree agents really aren't stakeholders. Fine point. I'll update description to clarify ... thank you!
chrisweeklyabout 3 hours ago
Not OP, but it seems to me the idea is that stakeholders can collaborate and come to consensus on the contents of QUALITY.md.
LiamPowellabout 1 hour ago
Here's the question I ask about every project that claims to make a LLMs output so much better: If it works so well then why would the model provider not just put it in the system prompt? Or in the case of interactive skills, why would Claude Code/Codex not make it a core part of the product?

On top of that, if your magic markdown file really does work then where's the evidence showing that? These projects never include even basic benchmarks. At best they're entirely vibe based, however more often they're completely untested. Give us a proper benchmark, even a single prompt and it's output with and without your skill in use would be better than every other project out there.

athrowaway3zabout 2 hours ago
Whats the revenue model for this NBPaaS? (No Bugs Please As A Service)
hiAndrewQuinnabout 2 hours ago
I'm less interested in this than in what people are willing to aggressively trade off against in order to get the stuff they truly care about.

For example, readability. Where are the developers out there saying "I am very willing to sacrifice a lot of readability to get even a small improvement on e.g. abstraction cleanliness", and sticking with it?

Or "performance can take a huge hit at the cost of being dead easy to read and reason about". Coming up with a list of abstractly good-sounding qualities is just prosocial signaling without knowing what you're willing to sacrifice. There should be a FUCKIT.md that enumerates these.

craigsmithamabout 2 hours ago
OP here. You're spot on. Trade-offs matter. The trade-offs are implied by the selection of what quality factors/attributes are selected and their requirements. A statement like "performance can take a huge hit at the cost of being dead easy to read and reason about" can sit right there in the QUALITY.md as a comment or in the markdown body.
bironranabout 2 hours ago
This is perfectly encapsulated in xkcd's "Standards" strip [https://xkcd.com/927/].
stronglikedan38 minutes ago
So is every proposal to standardize new things, and eventually the cream rises to the top, even though some people are perfectly happy sticking with milk.
Leewenabout 2 hours ago
Useful Nice
formerly_provenabout 2 hours ago
Pure slop.
bellowsgulchabout 3 hours ago
What?