Overview
Coding agents can create structured walkthroughs to help developers understand complex codebases they didn’t write or have forgotten. Simon Willison demonstrates how he used Claude Code with his Showboat tool to automatically generate detailed documentation explaining how his SwiftUI app works after he “vibe coded” it without understanding the implementation details.
Key Points
- Used Claude Code to analyze a SwiftUI codebase and create a comprehensive walkthrough - eliminates the need to manually reverse-engineer your own code
- Combined agent with Showboat tool to automatically execute shell commands and include real code snippets - prevents hallucinations by sourcing directly from actual files
- Generated walkthrough covered all six Swift files with clear explanations - transforms vibe coding sessions into learning opportunities about new frameworks
- Even 40-minute toy projects become educational when agents create structured documentation - counters concerns that LLMs reduce skill development speed