{"slug": "is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt", "title": "Is there a name for the type of comments agents add where they leak the prompt?", "summary": "A developer on Hacker News asks for a term to describe AI-generated comments that leak the original prompt, citing an example where an agent adds an unnecessary comment explaining the change. The developer argues such comments are not timeless and should be removed in code reviews, but lacks the vocabulary to articulate why they are bad.", "body_md": "This is a stupid example to illustrate what I mean. Say you have this code:\n\n``` php\n   def create_background(width: int, height: int) -> Image:\n       ...\n```\n\nYou tell the agent to use default values for create_background, the same as in create_screen. It changes the code to:\n\n```\n   # Now create_background params have default values, the same as create_screen in screen.py\n   def create_background(width: int = DEFAULT_WIDTH, height: int = DEFAULT_HEIGHT) -> Image:\n       ...\n```\n\nThe unnecessary comment is a staple of vibed code, but the tone also annoys me because it leaves behind the prompt. It words comments based on what it was asked to do, not in a timeless manner.I keep telling people in code reviews to remove unnecessary comments, and I feel I lack the vocabulary to express why this is bad.\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48522763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48522763)\n\nPoints: 2\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt", "canonical_source": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48522763", "published_at": "2026-06-14 00:04:51+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-14 00:31:24.185819+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "ai-agents", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Hacker News"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/is-there-a-name-for-the-type-of-comments-agents-add-where-they-leak-the-prompt.jsonld"}}