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Launch HN: Patched (YC S24) – AI workflows for post-code tasks

by rohansood15 on 10/31/24, 5:27 PM with 20 comments

Hi HN, we are Asankhaya and Rohan, founders of Patched (https://patched.codes). We help dev teams accelerate tasks like code reviews, docs, and patches through customizable, self-hostable workflows. Here’s a quick video walkthrough: https://youtu.be/5hvWGB5avVo

There is a lot of excitement around code generation and the development inner loop. But having built DevSecOps startups previously, we know how the bottlenecks developers face often occur in the “outer loop”, especially after the code is written. With Patched, we want to help code get shipped as fast as it is generated.

Patched has two core components. First is the workflow builder that switches seamlessly between no-code and full-code. Second is the chat-based query interface for your code, logs, and issue tracker. When used together, they can help orchestrate and automate the most painful parts of the software development lifecycle.

Here is an example PR created by a patchflow that automates SDK generation with complex type information: https://github.com/stack-auth/stack/pull/300.

Under the hood, Patched is powered by our patchwork library (https://github.com/patched-codes/patchwork) and an LLM optimization proxy(https://github.com/codelion/optillm) - both of which we have open-sourced. You can run these workflows within your CI/CD pipeline, or from the command line, completely independent of our platform. This gives you full control without being locked in, while allowing us to build a monetizable product around it.

While there are some great point solutions for tackling individual tasks, we believe the real solution lies in an open, holistic approach—one that teams can tweak, extend, or self-host.

You can try Patched at https://app.patched.codes/signin - we’d love to hear your feedback on our approach and the user experience.

  • by erulabs on 10/31/24, 7:25 PM

    Certainly agree about the bottleneck around DevSecOps. I wonder if this might be useful for the typical "scan everything, patch everything, SBOM for everything" loop that typically lands on DevOps teams and becomes a classic devops tug-of-war situation.

    I'll be trying the free-tier to accomplish this on a hobby project at some point soon, will try to provide feedback! Proof of patching, SBOM, compliance stuff is IMO one of the best moats existing companies have against newcomers - developers typically _hate_ security patching work - so there's money in that use-case for sure!

    Oh, edit: Congrats on the launch!

  • by Normal_gaussian on 10/31/24, 9:47 PM

    Congrats on the launch; the idea and process is a good one, but the results so far are less impressive.

    For a simple PoC typescript CLI tool I had, AutoFix decided to do this several times:

    https://i.postimg.cc/1z4Fs663/Screenshot-2024-10-31-at-21-37...

    In a straight forwards repo with no README it created a reasonable starting point.

    Yet in a more complex repo with an existing and comprehensive README, it decides to replace it completely with a simple one, removing key insights. I suspect the existing README isn't considered at all, making this kind of patch incompatible with most workflows (i.e. creating a README once isn't particularly onerous, keeping it up to date is).

    This may be a project to watch, but I'm disinclined to use it at the moment.

  • by adamhartenz on 10/31/24, 8:42 PM

    I thought "post-code" was referring to an era when we don't code anymore, because AI does it all. Made my heart jump a bit.

  • by remolacha on 10/31/24, 11:49 PM

    Congrats on the launch! One piece of feedback - I find the tagline confusing. I had no idea what "post-code tasks" meant until I clicked around and saw a few examples.

  • by md3911027514 on 10/31/24, 5:47 PM

    It's cool that there's a chat interface in addition to the PR's. I find that for most reviews a little bit of back and forth is helpful.

  • by haliliceylan on 10/31/24, 7:46 PM

    Its seems very nice, I will try it

  • by trump2025 on 10/31/24, 6:43 PM

    still not sure what the value add is here

  • by nextworddev on 10/31/24, 9:42 PM

    “AI workflows”

    read: we sprinkled some LLM prompts and some job orchestration