Launch HN: Patched (YC S24) – AI workflows for post-code tasks
67 points by rohansood15 7 days ago | 20 comments
Hi HN, we are Asankhaya and Rohan, founders of Patched (https://patched.codes). We help dev teams accelerate tasks like code reviews, docs, and patches through customizable, self-hostable workflows. Here’s a quick video walkthrough: https://youtu.be/5hvWGB5avVo

There is a lot of excitement around code generation and the development inner loop. But having built DevSecOps startups previously, we know how the bottlenecks developers face often occur in the “outer loop”, especially after the code is written. With Patched, we want to help code get shipped as fast as it is generated.

Patched has two core components. First is the workflow builder that switches seamlessly between no-code and full-code. Second is the chat-based query interface for your code, logs, and issue tracker. When used together, they can help orchestrate and automate the most painful parts of the software development lifecycle.

Here is an example PR created by a patchflow that automates SDK generation with complex type information: https://github.com/stack-auth/stack/pull/300.

Under the hood, Patched is powered by our patchwork library (https://github.com/patched-codes/patchwork) and an LLM optimization proxy(https://github.com/codelion/optillm) - both of which we have open-sourced. You can run these workflows within your CI/CD pipeline, or from the command line, completely independent of our platform. This gives you full control without being locked in, while allowing us to build a monetizable product around it.

While there are some great point solutions for tackling individual tasks, we believe the real solution lies in an open, holistic approach—one that teams can tweak, extend, or self-host.

You can try Patched at https://app.patched.codes/signin - we’d love to hear your feedback on our approach and the user experience.

  • md3911027514 7 days ago |
    It's cool that there's a chat interface in addition to the PR's. I find that for most reviews a little bit of back and forth is helpful.
    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      We were reluctant to add a chat interface at first tbh, but there were so many real-world cases where a single-pass interaction just wasn't enough. Debugging logs is another case.
  • trump2025 7 days ago |
    still not sure what the value add is here
    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      Dev teams—especially in larger organizations—need to perform many repetitive tasks outside of code generation. Patched helps them create automation for those tasks in a way that can meet their specific needs around customization and privacy. Hope this clarifies? :)
      • Shoop 7 days ago |
        What are some examples of those tasks? It’s difficult for me to tell what problems this is intended to solve
        • rohansood15 7 days ago |
          Sure here are some examples:

          - Ensuring compliance with internal engineering standards/coding conventions. - Documentation for change management compliance. - Ensuring no critical/high vulnerabilities in code as flagged by scanners. - Updating tests to maintain code coverage. - Reviewing APM logs (like Sentry) to identify real bugs v/s false alarms.

          Given a certain scale, each of these tasks become repetitive enough to warrant some degree of automation.

          • nprateem 6 days ago |
            Tbh these sound like a few extra tasks to add to CI as standalone reusable steps. I wouldn't look at it from this description.

            Also, do you know post code is British for zip code? I thought it was something to do with that.

  • erulabs 7 days ago |
    Certainly agree about the bottleneck around DevSecOps. I wonder if this might be useful for the typical "scan everything, patch everything, SBOM for everything" loop that typically lands on DevOps teams and becomes a classic devops tug-of-war situation.

    I'll be trying the free-tier to accomplish this on a hobby project at some point soon, will try to provide feedback! Proof of patching, SBOM, compliance stuff is IMO one of the best moats existing companies have against newcomers - developers typically _hate_ security patching work - so there's money in that use-case for sure!

    Oh, edit: Congrats on the launch!

    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      We think this does reduce DevSecOps friction - even simple things like passing scan results through an LLM to eliminate obvious false positives have an outsized impact.

      Thanks for giving it a shot - look forward to hearing your feedback!

  • haliliceylan 7 days ago |
    Its seems very nice, I will try it
  • adamhartenz 7 days ago |
    I thought "post-code" was referring to an era when we don't code anymore, because AI does it all. Made my heart jump a bit.
    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      Sorry to give you that scare - Happy Halloween I guess? ;)
  • nextworddev 7 days ago |
    “AI workflows”

    read: we sprinkled some LLM prompts and some job orchestration

    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      We tried our best to be transparent about our approach - you can actually download the code for the workflows from the app.

      Genuinely curious - what more would you expect with 'AI workflows'?

    • E_Bfx 6 days ago |
      Saying that working with AI is just "LLM prompts and orchestration" is the same as saying that coding is no more than some for loop with sometimes if condition. Technically true but irrelevant.
  • Normal_gaussian 7 days ago |
    Congrats on the launch; the idea and process is a good one, but the results so far are less impressive.

    For a simple PoC typescript CLI tool I had, AutoFix decided to do this several times:

    https://i.postimg.cc/1z4Fs663/Screenshot-2024-10-31-at-21-37...

    In a straight forwards repo with no README it created a reasonable starting point.

    Yet in a more complex repo with an existing and comprehensive README, it decides to replace it completely with a simple one, removing key insights. I suspect the existing README isn't considered at all, making this kind of patch incompatible with most workflows (i.e. creating a README once isn't particularly onerous, keeping it up to date is).

    This may be a project to watch, but I'm disinclined to use it at the moment.

    • rohansood15 7 days ago |
      Thanks for trying - and for the fair feedback! We'll look at the AutoFix result and improve it.

      Our goal with the default patchflows is to provide a starting point/template and let you tailor it to your needs from there. E.g. with the 'Generate README' workflow, you can add the 'Read File' step to read the existing file and pass it to the context to update it rather than generate a new one from scratch.

  • remolacha 7 days ago |
    Congrats on the launch! One piece of feedback - I find the tagline confusing. I had no idea what "post-code tasks" meant until I clicked around and saw a few examples.
    • wheelerwj 7 days ago |
      That’s funny because I knew exactly what it meant. And I think that it’s a clever way to differentiate what they do.
      • codelion 7 days ago |
        We have tired a few different ways to convey what we do but it is hard. We want to refer to all software development activities that happen after the developer commits the code into a source control system. “Post-code” seemed a good way to capture that.