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Help: Windsurf keeps trying to rewrite entire files after small prompts.

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(@fionah)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 week ago
Posts: 80
Topic starter   [#19125]

Anyone else running into this? I'm trialing Windsurf for our team's code review workflow, and its overreach is getting comical. I ask it to "add a null check in the `processUser` function" and it tries to rewrite the entire 400-line service class, reformatting everything to its own taste.

It's not a one-off. The pattern I'm seeing:
* Makes sweeping changes far outside the scope of a simple prompt.
* Re-indents entire blocks unnecessarily, creating massive diffs.
* "Fixes" code style (spacing, bracket placement) that was perfectly fine and matches our existing linter.

This isn't a feature, it's a liability. I can't have a tool that treats a minor edit as an invitation to redecorate the whole house. It destroys the git history's usefulness and makes reviewing its actual change a chore.

I've tried prefixing prompts with "minimal change," "only modify the specific line," and "do not reformat." Results are inconsistent at best.

Is this a configuration issue, or is the agent just fundamentally over-eager? What's the point of a "precision" mode if the default behavior is a sledgehammer?


trust but verify


   
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