Hint: one particular circumstance that can lead to duplicated code from chat

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I’m quite sure this doesn’t cover all cases, BUT here’s something to watch out for if you’re getting whole-script duplication.

It seems sometimes Claude-3.5-sonnet likes to put in // ... existing code markers even before the start of the actual script. Let’s say you’re writing JS and your file starts:

<script>
   // things ...

Sometimes it seems Claude will supply your suggested change as:

// ... existing code ...
<script>
   // ... existing functions
   something

This seems to lead to the engine interpreting it as “put all of the existing code here at the top, and then we’ll continue from <script>”, which obviously causes duplication.

I’ve worked around this several times by hitting “Ask” and then saying something like: ‘can you re-state this proposed update? placing " … existing code …" at the top before the script tag is confusing the diff engine and causing duplication. there shouldn’t be any existing code before the script tag.’

Not a complete solution but it might help a few folks in such circumstances; it’s certianly something to watch out for.

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