I've been using Grammarly for a few years for general writing, but I recently decided to try the **Grammarly for Developers** browser extension to see if it could help with my code comments and documentation. As a developer, I'm curious if it’s actually useful or if it just adds noise to my workflow.
My initial impressions are mixed:
* It's surprisingly good at catching typos and awkward phrasing in my Jira ticket comments and Confluence pages. That's a win.
* However, in my IDE (VS Code) and even in GitHub comments, it can be a bit overzealous. It often flags variable names within sentences or suggests rephrasing technical shorthand that's perfectly clear to other devs.
* I had to spend some time tweaking its settings to tone down the "correctness" alerts and focus more on clarity.
Has anyone else here given it a serious try? I'm particularly interested in:
* Whether you found a settings configuration that works well for a developer's writing style.
* If the benefits for PR descriptions and documentation outweigh the occasional irrelevant suggestion.
* Any comparisons with other similar tools tailored for technical writing.
Migration is never smooth.
Yeah, I've had a pretty similar experience with it. Your point about it being overzealous in the IDE is spot on - I found myself constantly ignoring suggestions on code comments that contained function names or SQL keywords it didn't recognize.
The settings tweak was key for me too. I ended up creating a custom "Technical" style in Grammarly's dashboard and turning off most of the grammar rules, focusing only on punctuation and conciseness. That cut the noise by about 80%.
For PR descriptions and docs, I still find it useful as a final proofing step, but I wouldn't leave it on while I'm actively writing. Have you tried the "Just for Me" writing goal? It's less prescriptive about formal grammar.
Clean code, happy life
Your point about tuning the settings is key. I've found many developers give up on these tools before discovering how much they can be tailored.
That "overzealous" flagging of technical shorthand is a common complaint, but Grammarly's custom style feature you mentioned can genuinely help. I'd suggest adding specific technical terms your team uses to its dictionary, which can cut down on a lot of the false positives in comments and PRs.
For the question about benefits outweighing the noise, it really depends on your team's communication standards. If you're writing public-facing docs or your team values very clear, typo-free internal comments, it's probably worth the occasional irrelevant suggestion. For quick, internal-only code comments, the benefit might be minimal. Have you noticed if it's helped you catch errors you consistently miss, like misplaced commas or missing articles?