Thorsten Ball questions pull requests in the AI coding era: "Why are you still using them?"
kieranklaassen · x · 2026-10-17
Thorsten Ball posted a thread questioning whether pull requests still make sense in the AI coding era, with developers like Kieran Klaassen responding "Team No Pull Requests."
Ball's argument:
- If PRs are for code review: spawn Opus 5.5, Fable, and Astra and have each check four times—do you really think human colleagues catch bugs they won't?
- If for knowledge sharing: models can now generate explainer videos, presentations, podcasts, quizzes, and walkthroughs for any code they can reach;
- If because of CI: CI originally meant continuous integration, which is arguably the opposite of a pre-merge review gate.
A representative voice in the ongoing debate about rethinking engineering workflows when AI can run parallel, multi-pass review.
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