Yep. I do so much work with Claude on product requirements and architecture before a single line of code is written, and test coverage is extreme.

If I need to understand a specific line of code it means I did something wrong in planning or in requirements for testing.

Claude won’t tell you why it did something. Instead, it will generate a probable explanation. The two are very different

> You can just ask Claude why it did something

But will Claude give you an authentic rationale and a traceable, verifiable "line of reasoning" for those things? Or will it just construct the next plausible Markov chain built on whatever Reddit thread it ingested at random?

You can ask Claude or any LLM for citations, and it will RAG them out ex post facto. Those actually aren't citations, they're just web searches for related articles, and they don't necessarily support the assertions that you're asking to cite.

I am sure that Claude and the others can produce intermediate logs of their inference and "reasoning" process while they are processing stuff, but can they really go back within the context window and construct an authentic apologia for a specific thing when you ask for it?

> and it will tell you [why it did something]

No, it will invent retroactively a plausible sounding reason why someone might have done it that way. These are very different things.

An LLM has no special insight into itself and has no reasons. It will come up with something that is convincing, and it will change based on the word choices you used in the request. You can observe this by asking it why it did something that it didn't actually do.

Dementia patients also do this.