I am going to merge the PR of Alex next week. Whole week no progress /
changes so lets merge what we have.

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 10:38 AM Štefan Miklošovič
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Alex,
>
> Has the situation around your skills improved in relation to what you
> have described or can we move forward with it already?
>
> I think it is better to have something in rather than trying to
> perfect it on the first merge. The skills are useful as they are
> already and they can be calibrated in the future.
>
> Regards
>
> On Fri, May 15, 2026 at 6:58 PM Alex Petrov <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > It performs poorly on larger patches, so I was trying to chunk it. I was 
> > also experimenting with reverse checklists: you generate a review checklist 
> > per patch and take skill as an input inspiration. Kind of semgrep rules but 
> > you encode them verbally.
> >
> > On Fri, May 15, 2026, at 4:37 PM, Maxim Muzafarov wrote:
> >
> > As for large patches used to test new skills, I think the “CEP-38: CQL
> > Management API” PR ( https://github.com/apache/cassandra/pull/4582 )
> > could be a good playground to validate the relevance and accuracy of
> > the suggestions provided by the deep-review and patch-explainer
> > skills.
> >
> > (By the way, we still need a reviewer to move this patch forward.)
> >
> > I used patch-explainer to generate a description. This is what it looks 
> > like:
> > https://github.com/Mmuzaf/cassandra/blob/cassandra-19476-bug-hunting/CASSANDRA-19476-PR-DESCRIPTION.md
> >
> > Thoughts,
> >
> > I think it would be useful to explicitly mention a strategy to split
> > large patches into some reviewable parts, for example by logically
> > separating them by component. There is already a “Skip or minimize”
> > section, but it does not mention breaking large patches into blocks
> > (if it's possible). The skill currently does not mention trade-offs,
> > although during implementation I constantly kept them in mind and even
> > tracked them separately in my notes for each critical section. For
> > example, what is actually preferable: issuing a direct command QUERY
> > request or invoking pre-registered prepared statements?
> >
> > I also experimented with Mermaid diagrams (1) instead of ASCII
> > diagrams. This is how they could look (2) and looks better than the
> > text, although I noticed they tend to be less accurate.
> >
> >
> > I also tested deep-review, and although I had already used Claude to
> > review my changes, it still highlighted several issues that need to be
> > fixed:
> > https://github.com/Mmuzaf/cassandra/blob/cassandra-19476-bug-hunting/CEP-38_DEEP_REVIEW.md
> >
> > Overall, I think it’s good.
> > Could you share any deficiencies you’ve spotted, Alex?
> >
> >
> > [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid_(Software)
> > [2] 
> > https://github.com/Mmuzaf/cassandra/blob/cassandra-19476-bug-hunting/CASSANDRA-19476-PR-DESCRIPTION-MERMAID.md
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 15 May 2026 at 09:18, Alex Petrov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > I have spotted some deficiencies, particularly when reviewing large 
> > > patches. I have an experiment running that might improve the situation. 
> > > I’ll report as soon I have a result.
> > >
> > > On Thu, May 14, 2026, at 12:31 PM, Štefan Miklošovič wrote:
> > >
> > > I just merged (1) and created (2) for tracking the patch of Alex. (1) and 
> > > (2) don't collide.
> > >
> > > It would be cool to include this (2) in upcoming weeks, let's just live 
> > > with what Alex provided for a while to evaluate that set of skills. If 
> > > the general vibe is OK I would approach the merge. Let's give it what ... 
> > > few weeks? Until the end of the month  at least.
> > >
> > > (1) https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21301
> > > (2) https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21373
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 3:21 PM Štefan Miklošovič 
> > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > BTW I really appreciate TLA+ machinery in that patch, I let it scan 
> > > compression dictionaries code and how we disperse notifications around 
> > > the cluster when a dict is trained etc. and it spit out stuff like this. 
> > > There is an IDEA plugin for TLA+ I ran it in and it just worked and 
> > > verified :) I can imagine these specs might be theoretically something we 
> > > commit into the repo as well when applicable. That way we would at least 
> > > conceptually codify the protocols and could elaborate on them on a high 
> > > level and run some formal verifications etc ... Really appreciate this 
> > > aspect of it.
> > >
> > > (1) https://gist.github.com/smiklosovic/24b4db51f9ee2b64d76cb0bbb104e29a
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 11:31 AM C. Scott Andreas <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > Alex - thanks so much for putting this together and sharing.
> > >
> > > Here are three additional data loss / corruption bugs identified by Arjun 
> > > Ashok using this set of skills last week:
> > >
> > > – https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21356: 
> > > CursorBasedCompaction: ReusableLivenessInfo.isExpiring() incorrectly 
> > > returns true for tombstone cells, corrupting cursor-compacted SSTable 
> > > format and cell reconciliation
> > > – https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21357: 
> > > CursorBasedCompaction: prevUnfilteredSize always written as 0 in 
> > > SSTableCursorWriter
> > > – https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21358: 
> > > CursorBasedCompaction: Final index block width off by one byte in 
> > > SSTableCursorWriter#appendBIGIndex()
> > >
> > > Stepping back a bit --
> > >
> > > This set of skills combined with the Opus model have enabled folks to 
> > > find 14 data loss, corruption, and correctness bugs in the project in the 
> > > past ~two weeks. These are bugs that likely would have gone undetected - 
> > > and if encountered in the wild, would have required extensive manual fuzz 
> > > testing to reproduce and identify.
> > >
> > > In the case of the the issue that I'd found and reported:
> > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-21340: GROUP BY queries 
> > > silently return incomplete results due to premature SRP abort
> > >
> > > I found this by invoking the skill with the prompt "Review Cassandra's 
> > > implementation of GROUP BY for correctness. Identify edge cases that 
> > > might result in incorrect responses. After identifying candidate bugs, 
> > > fan out subagents to write unit tests and fuzz tests attempting to 
> > > reproduce them. Assess their veracity, and present them in order of 
> > > concern."
> > >
> > > In less than 30 minutes while sitting on the sofa, the model and skill 
> > > identified CASSANDRA-21340. In another hour, I was able to establish its 
> > > veracity, then leave the model and prompt behind to work through the 
> > > issue and write up the Jira ticket by hand.
> > >
> > > I'm *really* impressed by what this set of skills enable, and I think 
> > > they may be transformative for quality in Apache Cassandra – especially 
> > > when combined with the ability to write in-JVM dtests; Harry tests; and 
> > > to use the Simulator. These also make it a lot easier to use each of 
> > > these tools.
> > >
> > > Here's how I'm thinking about this work so far:
> > >
> > > – The ensemble review skills are a great first-pass review that can be 
> > > used by anyone preparing a patch to identify potential issues.
> > > – They're incredible for pointing at existing and/or new + experimental 
> > > components in Cassandra to find serious correctness issues.
> > > – I'm sure we'd find latent issues if we directed the skills at 
> > > interaction between multiple components, like "range tombstones x short 
> > > read protection x reverse reads x compact storage" (etc).
> > > – I think these skills could be generalized to support bug-finding and 
> > > validation in other Apache projects.
> > > – I also think there is a generalization of these skills that could be 
> > > applied to CPU + allocation profiling and optimization.
> > >
> > > For those who have access to a suitable model, I'd love to hear your 
> > > experience attempting to find a latent bug in the database.
> > >
> > > I was shocked how easy it was, and am hopeful for what this might do for 
> > > quality and data integrity in the project.
> > >
> > > – Scott
> > >
> > > On May 8, 2026, at 5:22 PM, Alex Petrov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I would recommend Opus 4.6+ for /deep-review, but /shallow-review is 
> > > probably fine with sonnet.
> > >
> > > Maybe time permitting, I can do evals for different models at some point.
> > >
> > > Review process is always a bottleneck and introducing such skills should 
> > > help to make it faster and more reliable.
> > >
> > > This is hope here, but this is also just a start: we need to reduce 
> > > false-positives, and do more with specifications (P, TLA+) for critical 
> > > parts of code.
> > >
> > > On Fri, May 8, 2026, at 5:56 PM, Dmitry Konstantinov wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi, Alex, thank you a lot for sharing it. I have been using Claude code 
> > > for review of my changes but in a very basic ad-hoc way, it works for 
> > > simple issues. The skills look much much more powerful. I am going to 
> > > read and try them in the upcoming weeks.
> > > Review process is always a bottleneck and introducing such skills should 
> > > help to make it faster and more reliable.
> > >
> > > A question: what model(s) do you use to run them? Is Sonet 4.6 enough?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Dmitry
> > >
> > > On Fri, 8 May 2026 at 14:03, Alex Petrov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello folks,
> > >
> > > We have been working on some tooling [1] around Apache Cassandra 
> > > correctness, and wanted to share it with Cassandra community.
> > >
> > > We have approached this by "indexing" ~3k Cassandra issues and extracting 
> > > common patterns from them, generalizing them, then running evals, 
> > > tweaking, and extending them until we were had a strong signal that it 
> > > performs better than the run-of-the mill code review skill. We have 
> > > benchmarked it against some popular OSS skills (by presenting bugs we 
> > > knew existed from "indexing" Apache Kafka, inferring commit bug source 
> > > from the fix, and making sure benchmarked skills actually find it).
> > >
> > > In addition, I did my best to codify some things I knew about 
> > > correctness, researching code, and writing repros, and what I could find 
> > > in research papers and public blog posts.
> > >
> > > So far we were able to find (at very least) following issues (in reality 
> > > the number is higher but I have a backlog of potential leads to 
> > > investigate and reproduce longer than the time I have available for these 
> > > pursuits).
> > >
> > > deep review + fuzzer:
> > >
> > > CASSANDRA-21307: Lower bound [SSTABLE_UPPER_BOUND(row000063)] is bigger 
> > > than first returned value
> > > CASSANDRA-21292: Row re-inserted at the exact start of a range tombstone 
> > > disappears after major compaction
> > > CASSANDRA-21255: Differentiate between legitimate cases where the first 
> > > entry is the same as the last entry and empty bounds in 
> > > SSTableCursorWriter#addIndexBlock()
> > >
> > > shallow + deep review:
> > >
> > > (latent) issue of unused keepFrom in linearSubtract 
> > > https://github.com/apache/cassandra-accord/pull/272
> > > CASSANDRA-21336: CursorBasedCompaction: trailing present columns are 
> > > silently dropped in encodeLargeColumnsSubset()
> > > CASSANDRA-21340: GROUP BY queries silently return incomplete results due 
> > > to premature SRP abort
> > > CASSANDRA-21352 TCM: AtomicLongBackedProcessor sort inversion
> > > CASSANDRA-21353 putShortVolatile is not volatile in InMemoryTrie
> > >
> > > Via specifications:
> > >
> > > CASSANDRA-21337: Difference in behavior between Cursor-Based compaction 
> > > and "Regular" compaction
> > > CASSANDRA-21336: CursorBasedCompaction: trailing present columns are 
> > > silently dropped in encodeLargeColumnsSubset()
> > > CASSANDRA-21339: CursorBasedCompaction: expiring cells, same timestamp, 
> > > same ldt, different ttl
> > > CASSANDRA-21338: value comparison direction reversed in CursorCompactor
> > >
> > > A few folks were using this skill to test some of subsystems, and might 
> > > report more issues that I am not directly attributing here. I have also 
> > > used these skills for self-review and have caught a couple of issues 
> > > before they made it into the codebase.
> > >
> > > Despite some early success, I still consider this a very raw set of 
> > > prompts, but I think this has utility, and based on the success we have 
> > > seen so far, can be helpful and is (according to my measurement 
> > > methodology) fairing better than one-shot code review prompts that an LLM 
> > > would generate by user request.
> > >
> > > Since I was focusing on finding issues, running evals, and trying several 
> > > other methodologies that did not make into this version/cut, I did not 
> > > have a chance to sit and re-read the entire final result just yet, which 
> > > is why I am not suggesting merging this into Cassandra codebase until we 
> > > better vet it, but with your help and feedback maybe we can do this 
> > > quicker.
> > >
> > > Hope you find this useful, please share your opinion, experience, and 
> > > criticism.
> > >
> > > Happy bug hunting!
> > > --Alex
> > >
> > > [1] https://github.com/apache/cassandra/pull/4794
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Apr 13, 2026, at 1:12 PM, Štefan Miklošovič wrote:
> > >
> > > I noticed this PR just landed.
> > >
> > > Volunteers reviewing / improving greatly appreciated!
> > >
> > > (1) https://github.com/apache/cassandra/pull/4734
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 26, 2026 at 5:43 PM Jon Haddad <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > I wanted to share a couple of other things I thought of.  I wrote this:
> > >
> > > > C*'s technical debt will make using an agent in the codebase much 
> > > > harder than using one in my own
> > >
> > > I want to clarify my intent with this statement.  I was trying to convey 
> > > that I've had the luxury of refactoring my code several times, because I 
> > > don't have to worry about messing with other people's branches.  I 
> > > usually write something, use it briefly, find its faults, redo it, and 
> > > iterate several times.  I never consider anything done and am always 
> > > looking to improve. This is very difficult with a project involving many 
> > > people who have in-flight branches spanning several months.  Changes I 
> > > consider no-brainers might be a headache for C*.  For example, I can just 
> > > add a code formatter and rewrite every file in the codebase.  I make 
> > > major changes regularly without any consequences. Here, it impacts dozens 
> > > of people.  I proactively improve my code's architecture because there 
> > > are few, if any, negative reasons not to.  It's enabled me to pay off a 
> > > ton of technical debt that accumulated over the eight years I handwrote 
> > > everything.
> > >
> > > Another example: I've been working on an orchestration tool around 
> > > easy-db-lab to automate running my tests across several clusters in 
> > > parallel.  I recently refactored it to split the REST server code from 
> > > the execution into Gradle submodules.  Now I can create different agents 
> > > specializing in each module's content, which slims down the context for 
> > > each agent.  Since I have a very clear boundary on each agent's 
> > > responsibility, I avoid the overhead of having one agent manage one huge 
> > > codebase.  I can specifically tell that one agent is responsible for this 
> > > directory, and its expertise is in Ktor.  Another agent is a Gradle 
> > > expert.  Another is Kubernetes.  When I work on tasks they can be 
> > > decomposed into task lists for each specialized agent.
> > >
> > > I've always thought this would be a great architectural improvement for 
> > > the C* codebase regardless of LLMs. For example, putting the CQL parser 
> > > in a standalone module would allow us to publish it so people could 
> > > consume it in their own ecosystem without pulling in C*-all.  Isolating a 
> > > few of these subsystems could reduce cognitive overhead and simplify test 
> > > design.  I'm sure making the commit log reader standalone would make it 
> > > much easier to use in the sidecar. Easily using the SSTable readers and 
> > > writers without all the other dependencies would reduce workarounds in 
> > > bulk analytics and make these types of projects more feasible, benefiting 
> > > the wider ecosystem.
> > >
> > > Regardless of this approach, creating a devcontainer environment for the 
> > > project and pushing the image to GHCR would also be beneficial.  I am now 
> > > using one with each of my tools.  I don't trust Claude not to wipe my 
> > > system, so I sandbox it in a container. It only has access to the local 
> > > project and cannot push code or reach GitHub.  Devcontainers are 
> > > supported directly in IDEA, Zed, and VSCode.  You can also launch them 
> > > directly from GitHub or use the Claude mobile app.  I haven't spent much 
> > > time on this yet though, I still prefer two big 5k screens and a 
> > > deafening mechanical keyboard.
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> > > [1] 
> > > https://github.com/rustyrazorblade/easy-db-lab/blob/main/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
> > > [2] 
> > > https://github.com/rustyrazorblade/easy-db-lab/blob/main/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 26, 2026 at 12:58 AM Štefan Miklošovič 
> > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Thank you Jon for sharing,that was very helpful. All these insights are 
> > > invaluable.
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 11:50 PM Jon Haddad <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > Regarding ant, we'd probably want a wrapper shell script that is more 
> > > LLM-friendly, hiding the excessive text and providing more actionable 
> > > output.  You can also delegate any task to a subagent so you don't waste 
> > > your context on the `ant` output, and use Claude's new Agent Teams [1] 
> > > feature to have a "builder" agent run in its own process.
> > > Docs help Claude find code, big time.  You can give it your 
> > > organizational structure and that institutional knowledge so it doesn't 
> > > have to pull in many tokens from dozens of files.  It *definitely* works. 
> > >  I've pushed over a quarter million LOC this month alone [1], and many of 
> > > you may already know I'm obsessed with efficiency.  I constantly test new 
> > > ideas and approaches to refine my process; I've found good documentation 
> > > is *critical*.
> > >
> > > I've recently started working with both Spec-Kit (Microsoft, but it looks 
> > > abandoned) and OpenSpec, as both are designed to maintain long-term 
> > > memory for a project's product requirements and technical decisions.  
> > > OpenSpec is supposed to work better for brownfield and iterative 
> > > projects.  I haven't tried BMAD yet.  It seemed a bit more heavyweight, 
> > > but it may be better for this project than my personal ones, where I 
> > > don't collaborate with anyone.
> > >
> > > I have found that the best results come from loosely coupled systems.  
> > > C*'s technical debt will make using an agent in the codebase much harder 
> > > than using one in my own.  I haven't tried to work on a patch in C* yet 
> > > with an agent, but when I do I'll be sure to share what I've learned.
> > >
> > > Today I introduced OpenSpec to easy-db-lab, you can see what it looks 
> > > like [3] if you're curious.  A number of markdown commands were added to 
> > > the repo, and Spec-Kit was removed.  I haven't reviewed it yet.  By the 
> > > time you read this I will have likely made some changes in a review. If 
> > > you want to see the before and after, the pre-review commit is c6a94e1.
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> > > [1] https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-teams
> > > [2] my 2 main projects, not including client work:
> > > git log --since="$(date +%Y-%m-01)" --numstat --pretty=tformat: | awk 
> > > 'NF==3 {added+=$1; removed+=$2} END {print "Added:", added, "Removed:", 
> > > removed}'
> > > Added: 90339 Removed: 45222
> > >
> > > git log --since="$(date +%Y-%m-01)" --numstat --pretty=tformat: | awk 
> > > 'NF==3 {added+=$1; removed+=$2} END {print "Added:", added, "Removed:", 
> > > removed}'
> > > Added: 124863 Removed: 52923
> > >
> > >
> > > [3] https://github.com/rustyrazorblade/easy-db-lab/pull/530/changes
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 6:18 AM David Capwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > I’m not against memory / skills being added, but do want to request we 
> > > think / test to make sure we can quantify the gains
> > >
> > > <arxiv-logo-fb.png>
> > > Evaluating AGENTS.md: Are Repository-Level Context Files Helpful for 
> > > Coding Agents?
> > > arxiv.org
> > >
> > > <arxiv-logo-fb.png>
> > > SkillsBench: Benchmarking How Well Agent Skills Work Across Diverse Tasks
> > > arxiv.org
> > >
> > >
> > > These papers actually match my lived experience with this projects and 
> > > others.
> > >
> > > 1) using /init to create CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md yields negative results.  
> > > This is how I started and have moved away.  What is the context you need 
> > > 100% of the thing? It’s things that Claude can’t discover easy such as 
> > > tribal knowledge (such as link to our style guide).
> > > 2) Ant is horrible for agents, not to figure out what to do (Claude is 
> > > good at that) but at context bloat… do “ant jar” and you add like 10-20k 
> > > tokens… you MUST have tooling to fix this (I ban Claude from touching ant 
> > > command, it’s only allowed to run “ai-build”, and “ai-ci-test” as these 
> > > fix the context problems; rtk “might” work here, not tested as in on 
> > > leave)
> > > 3) Claude doesn’t need docs to find code, that actually confuses it more. 
> > >  When it needs to modify code it’s going to have to explore and will most 
> > > likely find what it needs.  I agree docs for humans would help, but let’s 
> > > keep it out of AI memory files.
> > > 4) I only really use sonnet/opus 4.5+, these claims might not be true for 
> > > older models or the open weight models.
> > >
> > > As for skills, the following makes sense to me but I really hope a human 
> > > writes as AI doesn’t do well at understanding the WHY well and makes bad 
> > > assumptions: property testing, stateful property testing, harry, The 
> > > Simulator.  I left out cqltester because I found Claude doesn’t suck at 
> > > it, so not sure what a skill would add. The others I found it struggles 
> > > with and produces bad quality tests.
> > >
> > > Last comment: Stefan, your link about ai code in the project didn’t take 
> > > into account what happened in the PR.  Our global static state world 
> > > caused a single test to fail which required a complete rewrite of the 
> > > patch that I ended up doing by hand.  So that patch ended up being 100% 
> > > human.
> > >
> > > Sent from my iPhone
> > >
> > > On Feb 18, 2026, at 6:29 PM, Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > These are great points. I like how granular the approach of having
> > > multiple files is. That means we do not need to craft one
> > > "uber-claude.md" but we can do this iteratively and per specific
> > > domain which is easier to handle.
> > >
> > > One consequence of having these "context files" is that a contributor
> > > does not even need to use any AI whatsoever in order to be more
> > > productive and organized. There is a lot of time lost when a new
> > > contributor wants to understand how the project "thinks", what are
> > > do-s and dont-s etc. All stuff which appears once a patch is
> > > submitted. If we explained to everybody in plain English how this all
> > > works on a detailed level, per domain, that would be tremendously
> > > helpful even without AI.
> > >
> > > It will be interesting to watch how these files are written. To
> > > formalize and write it down is quite a task on its own.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 6:47 PM Patrick McFadin <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Context size is the hardest thing to manage right now in agentic coding. 
> > > I’ve stopped using MCP and switched to skills as a result.
> > >
> > >
> > > A couple of things worth noting. You can use many multiple 
> > > CLAUDE.md/AGENT.md files in a large code base. I’m started doing this and 
> > > it is remarkable. For example, in the pylib directory a CLAUDE.md file 
> > > would provide the Python specific info if making changes. The standard 
> > > layout for each should be
> > >
> > > - What is this
> > >
> > > - Where do I get more information
> > >
> > > - How do I run or test
> > >
> > > - What are the non-nogetialble rules
> > >
> > > - What does done look like
> > >
> > >
> > > Imagine one in all sorts of places. fqtool, sstableloader, o.a.c.io.*, 
> > > o.a.c.repair.* etc etc. And they can evolve over time as people use them.
> > >
> > >
> > > The other thing to bring up is Brokk built by Jonathan Ellis. He 
> > > specifically built it for large code bases and specifically tests on the 
> > > Cassandra code base. (I’ll let him jump in here)
> > >
> > >
> > > Patrick
> > >
> > >
> > > On Feb 18, 2026, at 8:51 AM, Josh McKenzie <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I’ve had trouble using Claude effectively on C*’s large codebase without 
> > > a lot of repeated “repo discovery” prompting.
> > >
> > >
> > > Just to keep beating the drum: I've had trouble working in our codebase 
> > > effectively without a lot of repeated "repo discovery" time. In fact, a 
> > > huge portion of the time I spend working on the codebase consists of 
> > > reading into adjacent coupled classes and modules since things are a) not 
> > > consistently or thoroughly documented, and b) generally not that 
> > > decoupled.
> > >
> > >
> > > This is also / primarily a "human <-> information interfacing efficiency 
> > > problem" and it just so happens LLM's and agents being blocked from 
> > > working on our codebase is giving us an immediate short-term pain-proxy 
> > > for something I strongly believe has been a long-term tax on us.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2026, at 10:04 AM, Isaac Reath wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm a +1 for the same reason that Josh lays out. Markdown files that 
> > > detail the structure of the repo, how to build & run tests, how to get 
> > > checkstyle to pass, etc. are all very valuable to new contributors even 
> > > if LLMs went away today.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 7:33 PM Jon Haddad <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > It's all part of the same topic, Yifan.  You're making a distinction 
> > > without a difference. We could just as easily be discussing supporting 
> > > certain MCP servers like serena, or baking claude into a devcontainer.  
> > > It's all relevant. There's no need to police the discussion.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 4:25 PM Yifan Cai <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > The original post was about adding AI tooling, prompt, command, or skill. 
> > > The thread is shifted to AI memory files.
> > >
> > >
> > > I do not have an objection to any of these, but want to make sure that we 
> > > are still on the original topic.
> > >
> > >
> > > IMO, AI tooling has a clear scope / definition and is easier to reach 
> > > consensus on. Meanwhile, AI memory files are vague to define clearly. 
> > > Different developers on different domains could have quite different 
> > > preferences.
> > >
> > >
> > > - Yifan
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 3:37 PM Dmitry Konstantinov <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I do not have my one but here there are few examples from oher Apache 
> > > projects:
> > >
> > > https://github.com/apache/camel/blob/main/AGENTS.md
> > >
> > > https://github.com/apache/ignite-3/blob/main/CLAUDE.md
> > >
> > > https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset/mcp_service/CLAUDE.md
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 at 23:22, Jon Haddad <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I think a few folks are already using CLAUDE.md files in their repo and 
> > > they're just not committing them.
> > >
> > > Anyone want to share what's already done?  I'm happy to help share what I 
> > > know about the agentic side of things, but since I don't do much in the 
> > > way of patching C* it would be a lot of guessing.
> > >
> > >
> > > If I'm wrong and nobody shares one, I'll take a stab at it.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 3:08 PM Štefan Miklošovič 
> > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Great feedback everybody! Really appreciate it!
> > >
> > >
> > > Reading what Jon posted ... Jon, I think you are the most experienced
> > >
> > > in this based on what you wrote. Would you mind doing some POC here
> > >
> > > for Cassandra repo? For the trunk it is enough ... Something we might
> > >
> > > build further on. I think we need to build the foundations of that and
> > >
> > > put some structure into it and all things considered I think you are
> > >
> > > best for the job here.
> > >
> > >
> > > If the basics are there we can play with it more before merging, this
> > >
> > > is not something which needs to be done "tomorrow", we can collaborate
> > >
> > > on something together for some time and add things into it as patches
> > >
> > > come. I think it takes some time to "tune" it.
> > >
> > >
> > > Everybody else feel free to help! My experience in this space is
> > >
> > > limited, I think there are people who are using it more often than me
> > >
> > > for sure.
> > >
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 12:59 AM Joel Shepherd <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > There's been some momentum building for AGENTS.md files, both on the
> > >
> > > project and on the agent side:
> > >
> > >
> > >     https://agents.md/
> > >
> > >
> > > Same idea and benefits, but it might help to align folks on a "standard"
> > >
> > > that will work well across agents.
> > >
> > >
> > > I also think that more and better code documentation can be very
> > >
> > > beneficial when using agents to help with working out implementation
> > >
> > > details. I spent a bunch of time in January writing an introduction to
> > >
> > > Apache Ratis (Raft as a library:
> > >
> > > https://github.com/apache/ratis/blob/master/ratis-docs/src/site/markdown/index.md).
> > >
> > > The code itself is pretty well-documented but it was hard for me to
> > >
> > > build a mental model of how to integrate with. AI was very effective in
> > >
> > > taking the granular in-code documentation and synthesizing an overview
> > >
> > > from it. Going the other way, the in-code documentation has made it
> > >
> > > possible for me to deep dive the Ratis code to root cause bugs, etc.
> > >
> > > Agents can get a lot out of good class- and method-level documentation.
> > >
> > >
> > > -- Joel.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2/16/2026 8:03 PM, Bernardo Botella wrote:
> > >
> > > CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not 
> > > click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender and 
> > > know the content is safe.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks for bringing this up Stefan!!
> > >
> > >
> > > A really interesting topic indeed.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I’ve also heard ideas around even having Claude.md type of files that 
> > > help LLMs understand the code base without having to do a full scan every 
> > > time.
> > >
> > >
> > > So, all and all, putting together something that we as a community think 
> > > that describe good practices + repository information not only for the 
> > > main Cassandra repository, but also for its subprojects, will definitely 
> > > help contributors adhere to standards and us reviewers to ensure that 
> > > some steps at least will have been considered.
> > >
> > >
> > > Things like:
> > >
> > > - Repository structure. What every folder is
> > >
> > > - Tests suits and how they work and run
> > >
> > > - Git commits standards
> > >
> > > - Specific project lint rules (like braces in new lines!)
> > >
> > > - Preferred wording style for patches/documentation
> > >
> > >
> > > Committed to the projects, and accesible to LLMs, sound like really 
> > > useful context for those type of contributions (that are going to keep 
> > > happening regardless).
> > >
> > >
> > > So curious to read what others think.
> > >
> > > Bernardo
> > >
> > >
> > > PD. Totally agree that this should change nothing of the quality bar for 
> > > code reviews and merged code
> > >
> > >
> > > On Feb 16, 2026, at 6:27 PM, Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hey,
> > >
> > >
> > > This happened recently in kernel space. (1), (2).
> > >
> > >
> > > What that is doing, as I understand it, is that you can point LLM to
> > >
> > > these resources and then it would be more capable when reviewing
> > >
> > > patches or even writing them. It is kind of a guide / context provided
> > >
> > > to AI prompt.
> > >
> > >
> > > I can imagine we would just compile something similar, merge it to the
> > >
> > > repo, then if somebody is prompting it then they would have an easier
> > >
> > > job etc etc, less error prone ... adhered to code style etc ...
> > >
> > >
> > > This might look like a controversial topic but I think we need to
> > >
> > > discuss this. The usage of AI is just more and more frequent. From
> > >
> > > Cassandra's perspective there is just this (3) but I do not think we
> > >
> > > reached any conclusions there (please correct me if I am wrong where
> > >
> > > we are at with AI generated patches).
> > >
> > >
> > > This is becoming an elephant in the room, I am noticing that some
> > >
> > > patches for Cassandra were prompted by AI completely. I think it would
> > >
> > > be way better if we make it easy for everybody contributing like that.
> > >
> > >
> > > This does not mean that we, as committers, would believe what AI
> > >
> > > generated blindlessly. Not at all. It would still need to go over the
> > >
> > > formal review as anything else. But acting like this is not happening
> > >
> > > and people are just not going to use AI when trying to contribute is
> > >
> > > not right. We should embrace it in some form ...
> > >
> > >
> > > 1) https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts
> > >
> > > 2) 
> > > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
> > >
> > > 3) https://lists.apache.org/thread/j90jn83oz9gy88g08yzv3rgyy0vdqrv7
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Dmitry Konstantinov
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Dmitry Konstantinov
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >

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