Show HN: GPT Repo Loader – load entire code repos into GPT prompts
by mpoon on Hacker News.
I was getting tired of copy/pasting reams of code into GPT-4 to give it context before I asked it to help me, so I started this small tool. In a nutshell, gpt-repository-loader will spit out file paths and file contents in a prompt-friendly format. You can also use .gptignore to ignore files/folders that are irrelevant to your prompt. gpt-repository-loader as-is works pretty well in helping me achieve better responses. Eventually, I thought it would be cute to load itself into GPT-4 and have GPT-4 improve it. I was honestly surprised by PR#17. GPT-4 was able to write a valid an example repo and an expected output and throw in a small curveball by adjusting .gptignore. I did tell GPT the output file format in two places: 1.) in the preamble when I prompted it to make a PR for issue #16 and 2.) as a string in gpt_repository_loader.py, both of which are indirect ways to infer how to build a functional test. However, I don’t think I explained to GPT in English anywhere on how .gptignore works at all! I wonder how far GPT-4 can take this repo. Here is the process I’m following for developing: – Open an issue describing the improvement to make – Construct a prompt – start with using gpt_repository_loader.py on this repo to generate the repository context, then append the text of the opened issue after the –END– line. – Try not to edit any code GPT-4 generates. If there is something wrong, continue to prompt GPT to fix whatever it is. – Create a feature branch on the issue and create a pull request based on GPT’s response. – Have a maintainer review, approve, and merge. I am going to try to automate the steps above as much as possible. Really curious how tight the feedback loop will eventually get before something breaks!