I just tried to use Chat GPT to write a VCV module and it was surprisingly good at it. Like it knows the SDK surprisingly well if you just say, “I want to write a VCV Rack module in c++ that does …” I’ve made a couple of simple modules for my own use before, but I never thought it would be so easy.
Just want to encourage people to try… if you have any coding experience whatsoever you could reasonably make any module you want with ChatGPT, except maybe super complicated dsp stuff.
I would agree that it is probably easier than you think to code a VCV Rack plugin, half the battle is understanding how they work.
And using AI to generate code so that you can learn how plugins work is a good tool.
Although, I would not like to see a proliferation of AI generated junk plugins added to the library! By all means use AI to help you write code, but please don’t expect AI to help you out with all the UX work, debugging and/or testing, and all the polish and finishing touches that a “good” plugin should get before it is submitted to the library…
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see more plugin developers, more ideas, more cool modules, endless possibilities.
I am finding it harder these days to carve out the time to work on my plugin (day job, irl responsibilities etc) and I also find that after an extended break from development, I often forget some critical bit of my workflow and find it hard to get back into the swing of things…
So I decided I would document how I develop my plugin. Initially I just wrote notes to myself, but I eventually realised, you have to write documentation as if it is for someone else, only then can you be sure that it actually contains the things you might need to recall in the future.
So I started to write the documentation in a GitHub repo just in case I ever wanted to share it.
Unfortunately I haven’t found the time to finish this either, BUT maybe it could still be useful to beginners in some way, and maybe sharing this will provide some motivation to complete it at some point as well.
Small caveat that it may contain errors, but with that said, if you are interested, here is the repo:
I’ve developed in Delphi and C# for years, but last I touched C++ was more than 30 years ago, so my personal jurney into developing for VCV started with Paul Dempsey’s (aka @pachde) “GenericBlank” template and the using the “How to Setup your Windows VS Code Environment for VCV Rack Plugin Development and Debugging” by tonetechnician.
I’ve used GitHub CoPilot in VS code, and many times its suggestions are spot on, however I haven’t used Chat GPT to write modules. Chat GPT can however be a good companion to understand various topics, and it have helped especially in the beginning to get a bit deeper into the VCV SDK (all beginnings are difficult). Chat GPT can also be a good assistent for hunting bugs. One evening I spend hours trying to find/fix a bug that “keept hiding in plain sight”, and finally I copied the module-code to Chat GPT and wrote what issue I had, what I expected to see, what I actually was seeing in stead, and it nailed the issue at once. But as I am sure you know, Chat GPT, can also sometime be very convincing/suggesting something that is totally wrong 
Don’t forget about all the open-source plug-ins out there. I’ve learned a bunch about VCV-development by looking into the source of some of those plug-ins, and the forum here is also a great source. I need to have a closer look at the link @dan.tilley just posted, as I am sure there will be more for me to learn there