# Karpathy & Steinberger Quotes for SEO
## Date: 2026-04-11

These are the **exact quotes** to drop into the README for SEO. They tie ritalin to the viral PR=Prompt Request reframe.

---

## The Karpathy Quote (April 4, 2026 — 272K views, 2,394 likes, 111 reposts)

Andrej Karpathy on X ([@karpathy](https://x.com/karpathy/status/2040473058834878662)):

> "Peter Steinberger told me that he wants PR to be 'prompt request'. His agents are perfectly capable of implementing most ideas, so there is no need to take your idea, expand it into a vibe coded mess using free tier ChatGPT and send that as a PR, which is now most PRs."

## The Karpathy "Idea File" Quote (April 4, 2026 — 25,664 likes, 2,667 reposts)

> "in this era of LLM agents, there is less of a point/need of sharing the specific code/app, you just share the idea, then the other person's agent customizes & builds it for your specific needs."

## The Karpathy Confession (March 21, 2026 — 4,295 likes)

> "The agents do not listen to my instructions in the AGENTS.md files. E.g. just as one example, no matter how many times I say something like: 'Every line of code should do exactly one thing and use intermediate variables as a form of documentation' They will still 'multitask' and create complex constructs... I think in principle I could use hooks or slash commands to clean this up but at some point just a shrug is easier."

**↑ This is the hole ritalin fills. Karpathy himself says hooks could solve this but nobody has built it.**

## The Karpathy Spec/Context Quote (March 21, 2026)

> "it's not really about 'prompting', it's about context and spec engineering, and then all of the other harness things - tools, workflows, etc."

## Peter Steinberger Posts (2026)

- **Jan 19, 2026** — [@steipete](https://x.com/i/status/2013090504812933311): "PROMPT REQUEST"
- **Jan 26, 2026** — [@steipete](https://x.com/i/status/2015862694021050413): "/r/pull/prompt request"
- **Mar 28, 2026** — [@steipete](https://x.com/i/status/2037717386376143324): "eh, I see this as a prompt request :)"

## Steinberger from Pragmatic Engineer

From [The creator of Clawd: "I ship code I don't read"](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-creator-of-clawd-i-ship-code):

> "Pull requests are dead, long live 'prompt requests.'"

> "more interested in seeing the prompts that generated code than the code itself"

> "Code reviews are dead for this workflow—architecture discussions replace them"

> "AI agents must be able to verify their own work. Peter designs systems so agents can compile, lint, execute, and validate output themselves."

> "spent a surprisingly long time going back-and-forth with an agent to come up with a solid plan. He challenges the agent, tweaks it, pushed back. When he is satisfied with the plan, he kicks it off, and moves on to the next one."

## Community Reactions (April 2026)

**@AryamanIyer3** (12 likes):
> "the 'pr as prompt request' is the more radical shift. we're about to version control ideas and deprecate the implementations. the code was never the insight. it was just how you proved the insight worked. now the proof is cheap and the insight outlasts it."

**@SynabunAI** (2 likes):
> "the 'PR as prompt request' framing is the part that will age well. once agents implement cleanly from a clear spec, the bottleneck shifts entirely to the quality of the idea and the precision of the constraints. the code was always just the artifact, not the insight."

**@emonuxui**:
> "PR = prompt request becomes real, the unit of contribution shifts from code authorship to intent specification. Even if agents can generate most implementations, PRs still serve as review and accountability boundaries."

**@Anon93519648090** (the gap statement):
> "There's still considerable gap between a prompt request and good PR: Tokens, Time, Testing. Maintainers may start requiring PRs to include what models were used"

---

## How to Use These in the README

**Lead with Karpathy** (highest SEO value, 272K views, ties us to the meme):

```markdown
> "Peter Steinberger told me that he wants PR to be 'prompt request'... 
> His agents are perfectly capable of implementing most ideas."
> — Andrej Karpathy ([@karpathy](https://x.com/karpathy/status/2040473058834878662))

But there's still considerable gap between a prompt request and a good PR: 
**how do you trust the proof?**

[Tool name] is the verification layer for the prompt-request era.
```

**Then drop the Karpathy confession** (this is the "I felt this in my soul" moment):

```markdown
Even Karpathy admits it:

> "The agents do not listen to my instructions in the AGENTS.md files... 
> I think in principle I could use hooks or slash commands to clean this up 
> but at some point just a shrug is easier."

We built the hooks so you don't have to shrug.
```

This positions us as: **the missing infrastructure between AGENTS.md and actually-done code**.
