This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Riyana Patel
When bots write 23% of your code and reviews take 42 seconds
Wait, 42 Seconds?
I was looking through LobeChat's collaboration data and had to double-check the numbers. 42-second median review turnaround. Not 42 minutes. Forty-two seconds from opening a PR to getting your first review.
Most projects I've analyzed measure this in hours or days. LobeChat has somehow optimized it down to less than a minute.
But that's just the beginning of what makes this project interesting.
Bots Are Actually Writing Code
Here's the stat that made me stop scrolling: 23% of their PRs are bot-generated.
Not bot-reviewed. Not bot-approved. Bot-written.
Most projects have maybe 1-5% bot PRs (usually dependency updates). LobeChat has essentially made bots a full team member. They're handling localization, documentation, routine refactoring—real feature work.
The split is fascinating:
- 51% core team (tight group moving fast)
- 26% community (selective, high-quality contributions)
- 23% bots (doing the repetitive stuff)
So How Fast Are They Actually Moving?
Really fast:
- 93.6% of PRs reviewed within an hour
- 6 hours 41 minutes median merge time (for a production AI framework with multi-provider support)
- 82% review coverage (so quality isn't suffering)
For context, LobeChat isn't some toy project—it supports OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama, knowledge bases, plugins, multi-modal capabilities. Production-grade stuff that teams actually depend on.
What's Different About Their Approach?
Most successful open source projects we analyze are community-driven—60-80% external contributors, distributed development, everyone's invited.
LobeChat flipped the script. They're core-team-first with aggressive automation. Instead of scaling through community, they're scaling through bots while maintaining a tight core team that can make decisions in seconds.
It's working because:
- The core team knows the codebase cold (can review in 42 seconds with confidence)
- Bots handle the boring stuff (freeing humans for the hard problems)
- They've eliminated every point of friction (the process IS the competitive advantage)
The Question This Raises
Is this the future? A small, fast-moving core team + smart automation outpacing traditional community-driven development?
Or is this a specific strategy that works for AI tooling but doesn't generalize?
Curious what you all think. Have you seen other projects operate like this?
- Explore LobeChat's metrics: collab.dev/lobehub/lobe-chat
- Check out the project: GitHub
- Understand your team's collaboration: PullFlow
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Riyana Patel
Riyana Patel | Sciencx (2025-10-17T15:00:00+00:00) LobeChat: Where Bots Write 23% of the Code and Reviews Take 42 Seconds. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/10/17/lobechat-where-bots-write-23-of-the-code-and-reviews-take-42-seconds/
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