Is it okay to use AI for writing README?
Posted by SheeriMax@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 10 comments
Hey everyone, I have a question,
I just started learning how to code and how to push my projects to GitHub. I try to upload and keep my repos up to date even for small, simple projects like a CLI calculator.
I'm still new, so it's hard for me to write good README files, and I still didn't fully understand what it need to contain.
What a README should contain, for small projects.
Is this okay for using it, or should I be writing everything from scratch?
I want to learn the right way and not pick up bad habits right away, so I'd like to know how you personally handle paperwork when you're just starting out.
Thank you!
desrtfx@reddit
There is not much turning people easier away from a project than an AI generated Readme.md.
Invest the time and effort to learn to do it yourself.
If your project that you programmed are worth it, you should give them the effort they deserve and write your own readmes.
Of course, if you are just promoting your vibe/agentic coded slop, do what you want.
peterlinddk@reddit
If you don't know what to put in a README or how to write one, then don't write it! Simple as that - a README isn't a requirement for a project to work, it is a nice gesture from the developer to whomever should use the project.
And since you are just a beginner, learning how to code, no one is going to use your projects.
And I don't mean that in a condescending way, not at all - I just want you to write code and build projects that you think is fun and helps you learn. Then if some day someone wants to try and run one of your projects, they might have questions on how to do it - write a README to answer those questions!
(One thing I truly hate is those auto-generated READMEs that tell me absolutely nothing about the project, except to type npm init to get it up and running - please don't do that)
zibonbadi@reddit
I basically use my projecta' README as manpage for the user and my own engineering spec for the interface of what I'm plannong to build.
I know myself well enough to figure that the README is the first and last thing a user will read about your software so working from that keeps the software comprehensible.
Not sure if this approach is considered old-fashioned nowadays. I generally follow the UNIC advice of "if you can't explain your program in a page, it's doing too much".
Sylvi-Fisthaug@reddit
lmao that last part is real
Sylvi-Fisthaug@reddit
Depends if you like it or not.
If you hate writing documentation, you could delegate that task to AI, but then I would rather use integrated AI tools in the IDEs, or tools like OpenAI's Codex or Anthropic's Claude Code; to an LLM tool that acutally has access to the codebase, can read through it itself and actually spit out a usable README.
Then go through that README afterwards, quality assuring it based on how you yourself understand the codebase. Considering you write the code yourself, you are probably also well in control of that.
Just do not fall for the temptation to let the AI start writing and creating the projects for you. For quite a bit of usage Codex / Claude Code are able to produce complete Android Apps and other rather large projects in the matter of hours, even if the codebase might be a mess after it.
You have to be a good programmer first, before you are able to create good code faster with AI, at least regarding the current quality of code output from AI, current benchmark performance and the benchmark tests themselves.
Gnaxe@reddit
You can certainly consult with AIs to improve your understanding of things, but the currently available free models do not understand things well enough to write correct documentation reliably. AI-written docs may be a good starting point for understanding otherwise undocumented code, but it will get some things wrong and often not even explain the right parts that well. AIs do better with smaller projects similar to things they were trained on. But their training can mislead them if you break with tradition somehow.
SnooLemons6942@reddit
If you don't know how to do it and want to learn the right way.....dont use AI. Learn how to do it the right way and do it yourself. Check out other repos for good readmes
SeaCell7779@reddit
Yeah totally fine. honestly most devs hate writing documentation from scratch. think of ai as a tool to handle the boilerplate markdown so you can focus on the actual code logic. i use ai to scaffold my readmes all the time. it's kind of like how i handle document generation for my apps—instead of writing the html/css from scratch, i just use the ai template builder on pdfmonkey to do the heavy lifting for the layout. as long as you review what it spits out, using ai for formatting is just working smarter.
illuminarias@reddit
What would you be learning if you're just gonna prompt the AI to do it?
Slottr@reddit
Look at other readme's and base yours off that.
I would use it to format or rewrite professionally if you need help with that, but the chatbot doesnt know anything other than what you feed it