Created a PR in 2 Hours with AI Agents: Let’s Try Vibe Contributing

This is an article about how I thought, "Can I contribute to OSS easily with vibe coding?", and after actually using Copilot Chat in VS Code, I was able to create a PR within 2 hours of git cloning (the end).

Actual PR: feat: support copying from local file protocol #228

(This PR adds a feature to treat local files as templates to a scaffolding tool called giget^[1].)

Workflow for Submitting a PR Using Copilot Chat

Here is an outline of the work I did ↓

1. git clone
2. Ask VS Code's Copilot Chat how to verify operations and try running it
3. Have it explain the actual behavior and where it is written
4. Get an explanation of the general processing logic for the main function
5. Have Copilot add comments to the relevant sections regarding the explained processing logic
6. Manually fix the code
7. Have Copilot write tests
8. Fork the repository and push
9. Create a PR

It took about 2 hours from cloning to creating the PR. Considering I was modifying a repository with zero prior knowledge, I think it's an incredible speed.

Impressions: Understanding Code is Very Easy, but Coding is Not That Simple

In this instance, I mainly used the AI agent for code reading assistance and manually wrote the code fixes myself.

The AI agent was incredibly helpful for code reading. I was able to grasp the general overview and implementation locations in about 5 minutes. It was great how questions like "How do I run this locally?", "What is registry?", or "How does the behavior change when I pass this option?" were resolved instantly.

However, when it came to coding, it wasn't that simple. This was because the implementation was essentially adding a new feature, and I had to think for myself how to modify it in a way that aligned with the author's intentions. The existing implementation was written on the assumption of "downloading a tar file from online and extracting it," but this modification does not involve downloading or extracting a tar file. Therefore, it couldn't be implemented as a simple extension of the existing code. As a result, I had to code while considering the author's coding style and design philosophy, which was not straightforward...

Of course, it just happened that this fix required me to think of the approach myself; depending on the type of fix, there might be patterns where you can just hand it over to an AI agent. In that case, I think you could probably submit a PR in about 30 minutes...?

Summary: Let's Do "Vibe Contributing" and Start Contributing

Starting from a repository clone and submitting a PR in 2 hours is, after all, an incredible speed. To everyone reading this, please give vibe contributing a try and contribute to OSS.

脚注

1. A tool that downloads templates from online and builds directories based on them.