jedwhite

> I do think getting everything running on a single GPU at this resolution and speed is totally new

Thanks, it seemed to be the case that this was really something new, but HN tends to be circumspect so wanted to check. It's an interesting space and I try to stay current but everything is moving so fast. But I was pretty sure I hadn't seen anyone do that. Its a huge achievement to do it first and make it work for real like this! So well done!

That's an interesting insight about "stacking tricks" together. I'm curious where you found that approach hit limits. And what gives you an advantage if anything against others copying it. Getting real-time streaming with a 20B parameter diffusion model and 20fps on a single GPU seems objectively impressive. It's hard to resist just saying "wow" looking at the demo, but I know that's not helpful here. It is clearly a substantial technical achievement and I'm sure lots of other folks here would be interested in the limits with the approach and how generalizable it is.

Thanks for posting the original ideas that led to all this. "Runtime for prose" is the new "literate programming" - early days but a pointer to some pretty cool future things, I think.

It's already made a bunch of tasks that used to be time-consuming to automate much easier for me. I'm still learning where it does and doesn't work well. But it's early days.

You can tell something is a genuinely interesting new idea when someone posts about it on X and then:

1. There are multiple launches on HN based on the idea within a week, including this one.

2. It inspires a lot of discussion on X, here and elsewhere - including many polarized and negative takes.

Hats off for starting a (small but pretty interesting) movement.

They're quite different, I think. Some advantages with claude-run include:

- You make standard Markdown files directly executable using a shebang line.

- No special Markdown formatting or syntax needed. The Markdown itself is clean and standard, rather than using variable placeholders or any kind of special syntax.

- Regular filenames work: no special filename format needed. It just works like regular shell scripts with flags and piping

- Works with any text file format and file extension (xml, yaml, .ag etc)

- Includes support for session isolation

- Keeps script use separate from your regular Claude Code subscription

- Allows you to specify the provider cloud / model in scripts, or switch them on the fly.

It is intended to be more unix-like in philosophy.

One cool thing is that the claude-run scripts make any text file executable with AI, including xml, ymal, etc. So you can do something like:

    #!/usr/bin/env claude-run

    <instructions>

        Analyze this codebase.

    </instructions>

Then:

    chmod +x task.xml && ./task.xml

I know there are two polarized camps on the topic of AI coding. Even for people who are concerned about it and prefer to use traditional scripting, there are some benefits worth considering in having runnable, composable prompt modules.

There are some tasks that are challenging to achieve with traditional code, but where modern LLMs perform strongly.

Examples include summarization, complex content formatting and restructuring, natural language classification, and evaluation judgements.

I’ve found that it is useful to be able to easily incorporate these along with traditional Shell scripts and command line tools as part of workflow pipelines. And I hope it can be useful for other people too.

At the moment, it looks like Claude Code does not support using ‘temperature’ or ‘seed’ flags. It would be awesome if they add that.

Using the request to use a seed within the prompt will mean that when Claude rights the code it could use that seed inside what it writes for randomize functions. But sadly it wouldn’t impact Claude’s own text generation’s determinism.

There is active interest on GitHub to support this. But the most recent issue with it I could see was closed in July as “not planned”

Also +1 to using containers and sandboxed environments! It means you can yolo it and skip permissions dangerously to experiment with vibe automation :)

More seriously, I agree that setting permissions to the minimum needed for the task and using sandboxed containers is sensible.

Thank you, and yes! That is what I already frequently do for quick automation tasks.

As you say, Claude is actually very good at writing shell scripts and using tools on-the-fly. But I know there is an AI-confidence factor involved for developers making the choice to leverage that.

For simple tasks (in practice) I already find you can often prompt the whole thing.

For tasks where you already have the other traditional scripts or building blocks, or where it is complex, then you might break it up.

Interestingly, you can intermix these approaches.

You can have runnable markdown that writes and runs scripts on the fly, mixed with running command line tools, and chained along with traditional tools in a bash script, and then call that script from a runnable markdown that passes in test results, or analyzes the code base and passes recommendations in.

The composability and ability to combine and embed code blocks and tool use within plain language is quite powerful. I’m still learning how to use this.

I’m glad it is already useful and thank you.

There are some tasks that LLMs are good at, but which can be hard to do with traditional command line tools or scripts. This is true even when you are a skilled coder and expert in Shell scripting. Examples include summarization, judgement-based evaluation, formatting etc.

Executable markdown provides a method of building these tasks into traditional pipelines as small, single-task-focused, composable modules. They also have the advantage that they can be easily shared and re-used.

Thanks, it’s great to see people trying different approaches to runnable prompts and variations on literate programming. I think it’s an area with a lot of potential, and I expect there will be a lot of interesting ideas come out of it.

The constraints work consistent with Claude’s -p mode. It is isolated from your regular Claude interactive sessions and settings on purpose. And that makes it safer by default because you have to explicitly add permissions.

You can try this out and you’ll see what I mean if you run a few simple examples. This approach was based on experimentation and trying to be consistent with Claude’s own philosophy here.

I know this will not appeal to developers who don’t see a legitimate role for the use of AI coding tools with nondeterministic output.

It is intended to be a useful complement to traditional Shell scripting, Python scripting etc. for people who want to add composable AI tooling to their automation pipelines.

I also find that it helps improve the reliability of AI in workflows when you can break down prompts into re-useable single-task-focused modules that leverage LLMs for tasks they are good at (format.md, summarize-logs.md, etc). These can then be chained with traditional Shell scripts and command line tools.

Examples are summarizing reports, formatting content. These become composable building blocks.

So I hope that is something that has practical utility even for users like yourself who don’t see a role for plain language prompting in automation per se.

In practice this is a way to add composable AI-based tooling into scripts.

Many people are concerned about (or outright opposed to) the use of AI coding tools. I get that this will not be useful for them. Many folks like myself find tools like Claude helpful, and this just makes it easier to use them in automation pipelines.