
I'm thinking of something like https://mentat.ai/, but that actually works.
I will provide a paragraph or so describing the change I want made. Then it should create a GitHub PR, which I will review and leave only a few comments before merging. The whole process should take less than 30 minutes. This should work fairly reliably.
I tried this yesterday and it failed haha:
https://github.com/manifoldmarkets/manifold/pull/2694
See more discussion in my post:
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I genuinely believe AI agents will be coding small features regularly within a year, some already are. I’ve used a few tools to generate basic frontend code and automate boring backend stuff, and it’s only getting better. Especially in niche areas like fintech white-label software (check out https://kindgeek.com/white_label), where standardized components are key, AI can save tons of time. As humans, we tend to overcomplicate things, but AI thrives on patterns and repetition. I still double-check everything it writes, but it’s a massive time-saver.
I'd like to conduct some tests using codebuff/cursor. What are acceptable small features in your mind? I have a couple ideas:
- add a button to the comments bottom row that allows users to tip the commenter. Denormalize the tip amount onto the comment and display the total tipped amount on the button.
- Add a delete button for admins/mods that marks a comment as deleted (don't actually delete the comment, just set the deleted flag and hidden flags both) that hides the comment completely from the market.
@JamesGrugett said the delete comment button for spam fit the bill, I'll try using codebuff to do this soon
@ian I am aware that you work on Manifold, but since you are also the largest YES holder can we maybe agree to let @JamesGrugett do these kinds of evaluations once time comes.
@CalibratedNeutral That sounds reasonable, although he doesn't work at manifold anymore so I'm not sure if he'll want to put 30 mins in to do this. I was going to film my attempt from scratch
@CalibratedNeutral I was not aware of that. Then maybe a third party (another developer working on Manifold)? The stakes are reasonably high for me, so I really would strongly prefer to have everything as unbiased as possible.
@CalibratedNeutral Alternatively, @JamesGrugett could test this question on his new startup, codebuff. He uses codebuff to help develop codebuff
I bought yes because I've seen GitHub's Copilot Workspace already do promisingly well in my brief tests. By mid-2025, I can definitely see it being good enough to do real work on some codebases (especially if you have a good test suite).
if James doesn’t get accepted into AI grants, then there will be something better as an alternative, otherwise manicode will be coding features for us in a year
Will you @JamesGrugett provide additional repo-level, AI-specific documentation as you describe in https://manifold.markets/JamesGrugett/will-manicode-be-accepted-into-ai-g ?
From a reading of the question description text, I'd say that shouldn't be allowed: description mentions mentat.ai and "provide a paragraph or so"--both of which suggest no such AI-specific handholding.
Hi, great question!
When I created this market, I didn't imagine I would be building my own AI agent for coding.
Regarding human-created context on the codebase, I do think that should be allowed! Adding a bit of documentation seems like fair game. If, however, the context were specifying in detail how to make the coding changes for the specific feature, that would seem unfair.
Also, I think a little bit of back-and-forth with the AI should be allowed, since I did specify you could leave some comments, and that it should take under 30 minutes.
I think manicode does not yet qualify, since I'm not sure it would work 90% of the time, without manual intervention or extended back-and-forth.
Thanks for clarifying.
To be frank, the fact that you are literally designing your own AI presumably optimized for Manifold Github functionality wildly changes the odds on this question. Obviously can't know what projects will spin up over the course of the year (so fair play), but the phrasing of this question came off to me as pointing at 3rd party, general AI agents rather than Manifold-bespoke AI agents.
I understand. I will try to raise the bar of expectations if it feels like manicode is especially good at the manifold codebase compared to others. I don't really think this will be the case though.
While it is not coding, AI code review could be helpful. Take for example https://coderabbit.ai. It does a pretty nice summary as well as code review. They are also free for open source so you could try them out.
Here is an example that shows how it could be useful: https://github.com/jsonresume/jsonresume.org/pull/131#issuecomment-2236198926