Designing for developers means designing for LLMs too

At Encore, our mission is simplifying backend application development.

This is an ongoing effort. As LLM-powered tools advance, their use in building Encore applications is rapidly increasing.

Consequently, we're committed to ensuring LLMs can easily work with our framework.

The Challenge: Limited Training Data

Encore streamlines backend development with unique features and conventions. However, lacking the extensive open-source history (10 years) of other frameworks, mainstream LLMs struggle to:

• Effectively utilize Encore's built-in features.
• Adhere to our framework's conventions.
• Generate code compliant with Encore best practices.

This is understandable, given Encore's relative newness. LLMs aren't yet as proficient with Encore as they are with, say, React. This presents a significant developer experience challenge, as developers increasingly rely on LLMs for code generation.

Our Solution: Precise LLM Instructions

Our solution involves creating LLM-specific instructions. Our approach:

1. LLM-Optimized Documentation: We used Anthropic's Claude to rewrite our framework documentation and SDK reference, adhering to Anthropic's LLM instruction guidelines. This ensures clarity and precision for optimal LLM comprehension.
2. Defined Conventions and Rules: We developed a comprehensive set of conventions and rules for LLMs to follow, including coding standards, recommended practices, and tips for using Encore's unique capabilities.
3. Comprehensive Instruction Package: The result is a ~1500-line file containing all the information an LLM needs to build with Encore. This file can be directly integrated into your repository, providing immediate context for your LLM tool.

Cursor IDE users can enable automatic integration by renaming the file to ".cursorrules".

Improved LLM Performance

We're pleased to announce the open-source release of the initial set of LLM instructions for Encore.ts on GitHub.

This release has already significantly improved LLM performance in generating Encore-compatible code. We encourage community feedback and contributions via pull requests to further refine and expand these instructions.

Instructions for Encore.go are also in development and will be released soon.

By providing detailed guidance, we've bridged the gap between Encore's powerful backend framework and the capabilities of AI-powered development tools. We look forward to seeing how developers leverage these enhancements to build even better Encore applications.

Explore and contribute to Encore's GitHub repository. Let's build the future of development together!

Future Plans

Beyond instructions, we're developing LLM-powered code generation tools for Encore. Subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter for updates.

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