Developer Proposes 'Canary File' Test to Verify AI Coding Assistants Actually Work

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A software developer argues that the setup screens of AI coding tools are misleading, as green checkmarks and welcome wizards do not confirm that any real code changes have been made on disk. The author observed that early minutes of AI coding sessions are often consumed by OAuth flows, theme packs, and self-congratulatory prompts rather than functional output. To counter this, the developer created a minimal three-file 'canary' test — a JSON nonce, a JavaScript function, and an assertion — that an AI assistant must pass before the session is considered valid. A receipt script hashes the relevant files before and after the session, runs the test, and only writes a confirmation if the hash changed and the test exited cleanly. The author's position is that no AI coding session should be trusted until this verifiable, terminal-level receipt is produced, regardless of how confident the tool appeared during setup.

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