XF 2.3 Vibe Coding My First Addon...

[RobParker]

I use Claude quite a bit for work (primarily in Python) and got curious just what it could do in XF.

What I did was:

1. Gave it clear instructions on the scope of the addon I wanted to make
2. Showed in both the XF code codebase as well as examples of other open source XF addons so it learnt the basic patterns
3. Got it to set up a local XF install in ddev so it could quickly spin up/tear down an install
4. Iterated on the addon development for a few days, ensured we had tests suites
5. Got it to analyse the performance impact of the addon, optimise queries etc
6. When I was finally hapy, installed it on our server on our dev board
7. Added a few extra features and caught a few edge cases

I'm very aware that there are some massive pitfalls here but it's built something pretty cool but also very niche for our forum that would just never have existed otherwise (not worth spending the £1000s on a develope to do it).

Would be itnerested in people's views on this. Is vibe coding an addon (with some care) a viable option? What else would help AI learn how to best build for XF?

 

[Chris D]

Did you see the new stuff in XF 2.3.10 which can help with AI-aided development?

XF 2.3 Thread 'What's new in XenForo 2.3.10?'

Mar 5, 2026

Later this week we will be releasing XenForo 2.3.10 with a couple of notable additions for developers.

Phrase tools​

For more years than I've been at the company, we have had an internal tool which we use during development of features to help us keep on top of phrases. It scans the code base to detect strings in templates that might need to become phrases and also looks for certain delimited strings in PHP code that can also be converted to phrases.

In XenForo 2.3.10 we have (finally!) polished this up and converted them to CLI commands.

Template and Template Modification...​

• Chris D
• Replies: 83
• Forum: Have you seen...?

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Most notable thing here is the skills that can be installed from the CLI command which aims to provide agents with some context and guidance on best practices for developing with XenForo. But the xf-make commands are very useful too.

 

[smallwheels]

Is vibe coding an addon (with some care) a viable option?

In the way you seem to use it and for the purpose you are using it for? Absolutely in my opinion.

What else would help AI learn how to best build for XF?

As AI today basically acts more or less like a (surprisingly fast and productive) junior developer:

• if you want code that no one can or wants to maintain
• if you like dubious architecture
• if you like the idea of having hidden security issues

Stuff like that. So it is fine if you have the know how level of a senior dev or software architect and are able and willing to check the code that the AI generates. It may help with ideas when you don't know how to do something to get moving or inspiration ( however not necassirily good ideas or best practices but maybe nice if you use a programming language that you are not too familiar with). It may speed up things (but be a bugger on maintainability). It is a really bad idea when you have no idea about programming.

 

[RobParker]

Did you see the new stuff in XF 2.3.10 which can help with AI-aided development?

XF 2.3 Thread 'What's new in XenForo 2.3.10?'

Mar 5, 2026

Later this week we will be releasing XenForo 2.3.10 with a couple of notable additions for developers.

Phrase tools​

For more years than I've been at the company, we have had an internal tool which we use during development of features to help us keep on top of phrases. It scans the code base to detect strings in templates that might need to become phrases and also looks for certain delimited strings in PHP code that can also be converted to phrases.

In XenForo 2.3.10 we have (finally!) polished this up and converted them to CLI commands.

Template and Template Modification...​

• Chris D
• Replies: 83
• Forum: Have you seen...?

• 
• 
• 

Most notable thing here is the skills that can be installed from the CLI command which aims to provide agents with some context and guidance on best practices for developing with XenForo. But the xf-make commands are very useful too.

We’re still on 2.2 but that’s really useful to know!

 

[RobParker]

In the way you seem to use it and for the purpose you are using it for? Absolutely in my opinion.

As AI today basically acts more or less like a (surprisingly fast and productive) junior developer:

• if you want code that no one can or wants to maintain
• if you like dubious architecture
• if you like the idea of having hidden security issues

Stuff like that. So it is fine if you have the know how level of a senior dev or software architect and are able and willing to check the code that the AI generates. It may help with ideas when you don't know how to do something to get moving or inspiration ( however not necassirily good ideas or best practices but maybe nice if you use a programming language that you are not too familiar with). It may speed up things (but be a bugger on maintainability). It is a really bad idea when you have no idea about programming.

Yeah but things like providing it the idiomatic examples from decent open source addons feels like it can mitigate this a bit (just like giving a junior dev should existing code base to use as an example).

I know it’s a risk but with some care to feels like there’s potential.

 

[ES Dev Team]

Sorry to be rude but i find vibe coded products to be of consistently too low quality to be used.
The problem is that the process takes the programmer out of involvement. So, this means as a user, you're using alpha or first draft quality software.

A partial human:robot mixture of labor produces results closer to that of a skilled human. I will use the product of that, and actually that's the process i use lately when writing prototypes / some code segments, to good success.

The times my shop tried vibe coding we ended up with a lot of review, refactoring, and reprompting. If you desire the code quality of a human made product, vibe coding is not a good way to achieve that.

 

[InfernoDev]

I can’t rely on it for anything substantial but will use it to do basic stuff and I personally use codex and it can do browser automation and run scheduled tasks for like testing features and such I even made a bug tracker that will keep track of any errors while it’s testing. It can log into user accounts and test features across all the users I would only do that on a local server tho

 

[Digital Doctor]

Sorry to be rude but i find vibe coded products to be of consistently too low quality to be used.

depends on the vibe coder !

obsidian.md asks the addon (plugin) makers this question:


Obviously the speed at which addons are being made here certainly points to alot of the main addon makers here are indeed vibe (AI) coding.

 

[InfernoDev]

Sorry to be rude but i find vibe coded products to be of consistently too low quality to be used.
The problem is that the process takes the programmer out of involvement. So, this means as a user, you're using alpha or first draft quality software.

A partial human:robot mixture of labor produces results closer to that of a skilled human. I will use the product of that, and actually that's the process i use lately when writing prototypes / some code segments, to good success.

The times my shop tried vibe coding we ended up with a lot of review, refactoring, and reprompting. If you desire the code quality of a human made product, vibe coding is not a good way to achieve that.

I agree some what, I tried it before and it made my stuff stupid LOL. if that makes sense.

 

[ES Dev Team]

I agree some what, I tried it before and it made my stuff stupid LOL. if that makes sense.

I find that a human in the loop type workflow ( versus having an agent do everything ) produces results that are equivalent to my quality, and in some cases, better than what i write. That's because you're fully connected to the entire process and you can intervene.

Almost nobody uses that process anymore. Instead, they use agents, which removes them almost fully from the process. You end up with some very weird code very often. And generally the person who produced it doesn't know how it works.

A senior developer has had to develop good taste and judgement. A senior piloting these tools is not who i am worried about. I'm worried about the product of people without taste and judgement using a tool that allows you to conveniently omit having to put these things into the end product.



The problem is that the average joe can flood the software market now, drowning out actually good software.
Technical abilities that take a decade to get good aren't the bar anymore, so the quality floor on software is way lower, and as a consumer of software i now have a way worse ratio of bad choices to good choices to sift through.

So, generally not a fan, with a few exceptions ( what the redis guy is doing with a custom deepseek runtime is pretty badass )

 

[InfernoDev]

Yea I use it for some stuff just not the heavy lifting it can get so bloated you don’t even know what half of it does I was vibe coding a lyric video app the other day and it didn’t understand context and was adding supper long explanations every where lol

 

[ES Dev Team]

Yea I use it for some stuff just not the heavy lifting it can get so bloated you don’t even know what half of it does I was vibe coding a lyric video app the other day and it didn’t understand context and was adding supper long explanations every where lol

It takes some practice to understand how to get the clanker to do what you want.
It also takes good software tools and setup to get good visibility and control.

The hardest part is learning what level of detail you need to specify. If you want high quality results, you need high quality details.

Design skills can be easily practiced with AI since construction of the design is super cheap.
Understanding technical points? I can't help you, i have 25 years of experience doing the work we're asking the clanker to do, so i know if it's doing something stupid or if a different design would be better for x/y/z reasons.

No easy way around that! Design skills are much easier to learn!