PR count or LOC aren't great metrics: Agents can farm bug fix numbers
Daniel_Farinax · x · 2026-08-20
The post argues that PR count or Lines of Code (LOC) are not great measures of impact for AI agents. It is easy for agents to farm these numbers by stacking fixes. Much automated bug-fixing only treats symptoms rather than the actual problem, leading to an accumulation of patches over time. To achieve high monthly diff counts (like 1000s/month), the key is to let agents merge their own code, a practice that seems controversial now but may become obvious in the future.
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