When I used to play Screeps[1], a MMO strategy game where you programmed to control your units and buildings, a group of us setup a player that was managed in this exact way called Quorum[2].
If anyone wants to run their own project in this way I open sourced the code to do so under the GitConsensus[3] project. There's a Github App (which may not still work, but if there's interest I'll restart it) and a "run it yourself" python library and CLI you can run from Github Actions[4].
Cool social experiment. It's interesting how narrow the scope of all top voted PRs are: change this or that detail in the voting (daily, count down votes etc), or make it more efficient (rust).
I wonder if this has the potential to build a "community" that will take this into a completely different direction, or if it will neatly stay within the initial boundaries.
> The website IS the repo. The repo IS the website.
I wonder if we get something productive by end of 2026 from this repo. Who knows, maybe we solve AGI
Wikipedia basically works this way. And instead of it being directly public, it goes through a voting process. One might argue it's actually much more curated than Wikipedia :P
Oh man, I was going to try and find that to link to it. I can’t believe it was 10 years ago…
I really enjoyed following that for a while. Thanks for making it.
Are guardrails, CI/CD, to make code at least compile-able and require minimal quality standards also possible to change via PR or managed somewhere else? With this possibility, it might went into oblivion indeed!
Maybe Firefox is prescient, just waiting for someone to create a problematic pull request that does something untoward while simultaneously locking everyone else from submitting pull requests (and get a bunch of bots to upvote it in the last second before the merge window closes).
A lot of engineering disciplines are a mixture of math, art, and science. Programming was no different, but I do think some people built up an identity that reinforced a difference that wasn't there to begin with.
Yes, this could end up either turning into a Linux or like when Microsoft released Tay and Twitter users taught it to be a Nazi. Or anywhere in between, really.
It really can't for numerous reasons, one of them being that PRs have to be fairly low effort, and this will be even more so if the popular "merge daily" PR is voted in. People talk about this "evolving", but it's nothing like biological evolution or genetic algorithms. It's just a linear sequence of small changes, and without either planning and central authority or some stable fitness function (the ecological environment in biological evolution) the changes are directionless.
When I used to play Screeps[1], a MMO strategy game where you programmed to control your units and buildings, a group of us setup a player that was managed in this exact way called Quorum[2].
If anyone wants to run their own project in this way I open sourced the code to do so under the GitConsensus[3] project. There's a Github App (which may not still work, but if there's interest I'll restart it) and a "run it yourself" python library and CLI you can run from Github Actions[4].
1. https://screeps.com/
2. https://github.com/ScreepsQuorum/screeps-quorum
3. https://www.gitconsensus.com/
4. https://pypi.org/project/gitconsensus/
Cool social experiment. It's interesting how narrow the scope of all top voted PRs are: change this or that detail in the voting (daily, count down votes etc), or make it more efficient (rust).
I wonder if this has the potential to build a "community" that will take this into a completely different direction, or if it will neatly stay within the initial boundaries.
I don't get the title. Do I understand correctly this is basically "Twitch plays Github" without Twitch?
GitHub plays GitHub?
yea
I'd expect even more chaos, let an LLM build the features and people vote.
Behold: https://theboard.stavros.io/
I honestly thought that this is what it was initially.
Is most code not written by LLMs these days anyway?
Most code by lines, perhaps, but not most code that works and is useful
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Is it a kind of computer-assisted Nomic [0]?
0: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
See also PerlNomic: http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch...
Nomic vibes indeed
Really interesting. I wonder if something good will come out of it. It feels like twitch plays pomemon.
If you want to see a speedrun, I made the same thing around a month ago:
https://theboard.stavros.io
This is cool, but once a week seems a little slow
there's a PR for that! :p
https://github.com/skridlevsky/openchaos/pull/51
The frequency should be adjusted based on the number of participants
Request merging the change you wish to see!
It could merge any PR that reaches a set number of upvotes
is it forkable to have even more chaos?
> The website IS the repo. The repo IS the website. I wonder if we get something productive by end of 2026 from this repo. Who knows, maybe we solve AGI
Would have been even more absurd if code AND PRs were all AI generated by different coding agents
Nothing is stopping that from happening tbh
It's not possible to generate anything productive this way.
Wikipedia basically works this way. And instead of it being directly public, it goes through a voting process. One might argue it's actually much more curated than Wikipedia :P
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The end product is... just the website?
I feel like I'm missing something.
It’s an absurdist art software project, devoid of any consistent intent or purpose beyond the operating principles.
codified dadaismus
It can evolve into anything based on community votes
So it begins?
Once you have governance that people stick around for, you can decide to do anything
It's not a product, it's a social experiment for programmers.
Excited to see how this plays out, I made something similar a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9351286
Oh man, I was going to try and find that to link to it. I can’t believe it was 10 years ago… I really enjoyed following that for a while. Thanks for making it.
Should votes get invalidated after major change in the ongoing PR?
They should automate reading hacker news comments and generating PRs to address them
Open a PR and suggest this.
You can't just "suggest" something in a PR, you have to provide the change.
Are guardrails, CI/CD, to make code at least compile-able and require minimal quality standards also possible to change via PR or managed somewhere else? With this possibility, it might went into oblivion indeed!
I mean.... it's the spirit of the project to eventually be able to reach to that state. I freaking love that project woaw hahaha
Firefox warns of a security threat when I visit the site.
Maybe Firefox is prescient, just waiting for someone to create a problematic pull request that does something untoward while simultaneously locking everyone else from submitting pull requests (and get a bunch of bots to upvote it in the last second before the merge window closes).
Merging the security threat is yet to be voted on
You know it’s kinda like a lottery the more I read it lol! If the repo got super popular and had lots of traffic say.
Reading through the comments, it’s remarkable how many of us have had the same idea at some point
Beautifully executed
Sorry to be a party pooper I just don’t get the point.
I don't think there's a point. You can always submit a point, if it gets voted you will have your point
This is exactly the point.
It's a bit like bigtech but instead of product people voting on what gets merged, everyone gets a vote here.
Am I the only one who's noticing that this "open chaos" project's most voted PRs are to add structure to the project (e.g., calculate +1/-1, etc.)?
I guess people just desire a certain amount of structure to their chaos :)
Can’t have one without the other
“Convenient chaos”
I guess this is one sign that coding is drifting to an art, given the LLM is invading.
A lot of engineering disciplines are a mixture of math, art, and science. Programming was no different, but I do think some people built up an identity that reinforced a difference that wasn't there to begin with.
Twitch plays Github?
confused, what is this and what’s going on exactly?
https://github.com/skridlevsky/openchaos?tab=readme-ov-file#...
Anyone makes a PR, there's a vote and highest voted one gets merged every week. It's marvelous.
Like reddit but nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
Click through to the GitHub link at the bottom, which has the README. It explains everything.
This is a very interesting experiment where I hope the metamorphosis is more like a butterfly than Kafka.
Yes, this could end up either turning into a Linux or like when Microsoft released Tay and Twitter users taught it to be a Nazi. Or anywhere in between, really.
It really can't for numerous reasons, one of them being that PRs have to be fairly low effort, and this will be even more so if the popular "merge daily" PR is voted in. People talk about this "evolving", but it's nothing like biological evolution or genetic algorithms. It's just a linear sequence of small changes, and without either planning and central authority or some stable fitness function (the ecological environment in biological evolution) the changes are directionless.
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Genius.