Linus Torvalds works on the Linux kernel with Claude Code…'code, tests and draft done by an LLM'

Linux creator Linus Torvalds used Anthropic's Claude Code for a Linux kernel performance improvement.

Phoronix reported a new branch, noref-filemap-read-with-llm, in Torvalds' git repository. It reworks memory management code to ease contention when many threads make small reads of one file.

In the patch message, Torvalds wrote that 'the code, the test programs, the review behind the list above and the first draft of this text were done with an LLM coding assistant (Claude Code) under my direction. The measurements were run on my machine.'

Phoronix said the gains are significant and it remains to be seen whether the work lands in the Linux 7.4 merge window. Torvalds has used AI for kernel debugging before and tried vibe coding with Google's Antigravity.