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Aider is great, but you need specific formats from the llm. That might be where the challenge is.

I've used the giant context in Gemini to dump a code base and say: describe the major data structures and data flows.

Things like that, overview documents, work great. It's amazing for orienting in an unfamiliar codebase.

Yes, that is true. Aider expects to work with the LLM to automatically apply edits to the source files. This requires precision from the LLM, which is what breaks down when you overload them with context.

Not true. In Aider the patch produced by the LLM is sent to a second model that is just tasked with fixing the patch — it works wonders.

Based on an earlier comment, I think the person you're replying to is the author of aider.

Yes, aider can also work in architect/editor mode [0] which tends to produce the best results [1]. An architect model solves the coding problem and describes the needed changes however comes naturally to it. The editor model then takes that solution and turns it into correctly formatted instructions to edit the files.

Too much context can still confuse the LLMs in this situation, but they may be somewhat more resilient.

[0] https://aider.chat/2024/09/26/architect.html

[1] https://aider.chat/2025/01/24/r1-sonnet.html

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