{"slug": "give-me-knobs", "title": "Give Me Knobs", "summary": "A developer argues that LLM coding assistants should expose adjustable variables as real-time controls rather than requiring repeated prompts, citing a bouncing-ball animation as an example where five tunable variables would replace iterative reprompting. The author says this approach delivers precise, immediate control and avoids spending tokens to ask which variables to edit, and asks Hacker News readers for alternatives to the prompt-response loop.", "body_md": "Make a green ball bounce between two positions on click.\n\nLLM\nInstead of\n\nI've implemented the animation. Let me know if you'd like me to make it faster or slower!\n\nGive me this\n\nI've implemented the animation. Here are the five variables used. You can update them in real time.\n\n1. I get precise, immediate control without reprompting the LLM for adjustments\n2. I can see what to change without taking the time to scan the code for what variables to edit or spending tokens asking which variable to edit\n\nViewing what I'm editing in the chat is not a strict requirement. I just need the knobs to update variables.\n\nAnother thing I've been thinking about is how annoying the chat interface can be. I stop, wait,\n\t\treview, and prompt again. I want to do the same work faster while keeping the context in my head\n\t\tand staying in flow. I asked about [alternatives to the prompt response loop on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48771515), but I haven't seen anything yet. If you're building or have come across something that tries\n\t\ta different approach, please let me know.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-me-knobs", "canonical_source": "https://yehiaabdelm.com/blog/give-me-knobs", "published_at": "2026-09-11 06:55:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-11 07:27:36.239904+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "developer-tools", "large-language-models", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Hacker News"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-me-knobs", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-me-knobs.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-me-knobs.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-me-knobs.jsonld"}}