I Created My First AI-Assisted Pull Request and I Feel Like a Fraud

I created my first AI pull request for Chroma, which is the default syntax highlighter used in Hugo.

I used Claude Code for that PR. I didn’t learn anything. I felt like I was flinging slop over the wall to an open-source maintainer. I felt like a fraud and my impostor syndrome got worse.

But here’s the thing, I still contributed something of value. It’s something I have been wanting in hugo for a long time to syntax highlight ERB snippets in my posts. It was approved and merged by the maintainer (thanks for dealing with my slop, Alec).

It just feels odd. I know there are many people that are excited this new era of writing code. But to me this has sucked out all of the fun. I have never felt like a bigger fraud in this field. I’ve always thought that I’m privileged that I get to have fun at all in my line of work. As Ori Bernstein says: “using LLMs to write code is as fun as hiring a taskrabbit to solve my jigsaw puzzles”.

But then again, I know that realistically I would not have the mental capacity or skill to create a pull request like that without AI tooling. My brain is already fried from work on most days. I don’t think I would have been able to learn the codebase and get enough context to make that PR all by myself. It’s a lot. I just wanted some ERB syntax highlighting for my little blog.

Even at work I’ve used Claude Code and other AI tooling to deliver fixes and improvements that have real customer impact. But no matter how big the impact, I feel empty. I agree with Xe Iaso in the first sentence of their post: “Whenever I have Claude do something for me, I feel nothing about the results”.

Now that using AI is a normal expectation at work and how I’m evaluated in performance reviews, I suspect that this fraud feeling will only grow. The industry as a whole is incentivizing delivering code/features/fixes at a quick pace even if it’s all just slop.

I keep thinking a lot about how I perhaps tied my identity too much to my career. I’m not the greatest engineer, but I’ve always worked hard to deliver good work and learn as much as possible. I care a lot about understanding underlying systems as much as possible. I care about the craftsmanship of my code (to the best of my abilities). Unlike me, AI tools don’t care about any of these values.

At the end of the day, the shareholders care about delivering features, gaining customers, and making money. They don’t care how software is built.

I don’t know what to make of this.