Snipity-Do: A GPT CoPilot for Script Examination

Highlight some script, understand it. This utility is that simple.

I’ve written about CoPilots before. Here’s an example of one I built some time ago and found quite useful.

What if you could highlight a block of code in the Airtable editor, and with a single keyboard shortcut, it could instantly examine the code to reveal:

1. What its purpose is and how it works.

2. The most likely ways it might fail.

3. The tech debt that it carries and the estimated cost of that debt.

The [Paste] button inserts this content as a comment above the examined code.

Github’s CoPilot does this, but it’s anchored to specific apps where it can run. Snipity-Do was created to work everywhere and on three popular OSes.

This is pretty cool, and I use it a lot, partly because I’m lazy; I don’t want to examine my own code, let alone code written by others.

I have used this when reading code examples in various communities; it is designed to work everywhere you are looking at code and includes ignoring statements like output.Markdown() which is an Airtable nuance. I also have it set up to ignore certain Google Apps Script SDK methods.

I used a script from @Oglesbeard above as an example to see how well it would compare with his excellent function documentation. Snipity-Do did alright.

In my practice, this utility also posts analytics into a Coda document, including who wrote the code, the date/time it was assessed, what additional comments were added by me, etc. I use it to track progress and change as much as I use it to inform a developer of some things to look out for.

I can use this tool across Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It can be used inside any editor, app, or desktop app and Slack.

I’ll be happy to field questions about the approach I used to create this utility, but first, I need some answers…

1. Is this something that fills a gap?

2. Does it have value?

3. Who amongst you would love to take this basic functionality and go nuts with it in a commercial way?

I’ve included the script below.