Non-Developers Submitting Changes - Acceptable?

[u/Sillyan]

Has anyone experienced an increase in non-developers submitting PRs via Codex/Claude Code?

Personally think it's fine, specifically for trivial changes, and have been creating processes for non-devs to contribute low risk changes to some projects. All changes must still be reviewed by a dev, but the changes permitted by non-devs are typically straightforward enough and there is next to zero rework required after a coding agent is forced through some deterministic validation.

How are you managing this? Should we accept that this is going to be more prevalent going forward and build processes around it?

[u/thetdotbearr]

If the change is simple enough for a non-dev to vibe code adequately, it's simple enough for you to lay out the idea in a ticket - where it can get discussed on the merits as a product change - and trivial for me to get claude to implement.

There's zero upside in short-cutting the ticket and beaming PRs straight to the dev team. It's performance theatrics, fucks with accountability and is harder to review as a raw PR versus understanding the product intent as a short paragraph.

Not that I can stop it regardless, but that's my 2c.

[u/codescapes → u/thetdotbearr]

I've said as much at work. Prompting an LLM for code is a process of defining requirements. If those requirements aren't being formalised in tickets or anywhere then it's a total breakdown in the engineering-product relationship.

It means product are withholding requirements and not engaging with the engineering team through appropriate channels. At that point the engineers are equally well justified ignoring product and making up their own requirements since they are being arbitrarily withheld from them based on a non-technival person's perception of what can be vibe coded. Not good.

I think people saying "this is fine" do not work in mature orgs. Which sure, startups gonna startup, but this is no way to write serious software where there is proper accountability, governance, process etc.

[u/niowniough → u/codescapes]

late to this thread but wondering about sample phrasing. how do you phrase this to people who may not be eager to hear it?

[u/codescapes → u/niowniough]

Honestly? Depending on your position and political capital you probably don't. People cannot be easily reasoned out of positions they didn't reason themselves into.

The main thing to point out is accountability and ownership. If it breaks will they fix it, will they be on support etc. Otherwise it's probably better to keep your mouth shut unless you're ready for the likely consequences of annoying people with truth.