How to Review AI-Generated PRs That Quietly Expand Public API Signatures
Coding agents frequently add optional parameters with default values to make new code compile, but these defaults silently change behavior for all existing callers. A new review method highlights that added public names, defaulted parameters, and new CLI flags should be treated as shipped product decisions, not minor style choices. The approach covers Python packages specifically, defining what counts as public — including module-level names, argparse options, and serialized dataclass fields. Reviewers are advised to either revert agent-promoted private helpers or consciously accept the ongoing support cost. A proposed Python AST diff script is also provided to compare function signatures across two code trees and surface added parameters or changed defaults before merging.
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