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AGENTS.md: Align AI attribution policy with Kubernetes community#204

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AGENTS.md: Align AI attribution policy with Kubernetes community#204
cgwalters wants to merge 1 commit into
bootc-dev:mainfrom
cgwalters:sync-agentsmd-k8s

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Adopt the policy established in kubernetes/community#8918: disclose AI assistance in the PR description rather than via commit trailers. Listing AI tooling as a co-author or using 'Assisted-by' / 'Co-developed-by' trailers is now explicitly prohibited, matching the Kubernetes steering committee's position on AI disclosure.

Further rationale: the Assisted-by schema (tool + model name) doesn't capture common multi-agent patterns (planner + executor), and model names alone don't tell reviewers much — the prompt harness and skills matter just as much.

Also adds two new guidance sections:

  • Pull request size: encourage splitting prep commits out separately
  • Commit messages and text: remind agents that natural language can't be machine-checked, so humans should own the commit message prose

Adopt the policy established in kubernetes/community#8918: disclose AI
assistance in the PR description rather than via commit trailers.
Listing AI tooling as a co-author or using 'Assisted-by' / 'Co-developed-by'
trailers is now explicitly prohibited, matching the Kubernetes steering
committee's position on AI disclosure.

Further rationale: the Assisted-by schema (tool + model name) doesn't
capture common multi-agent patterns (planner + executor), and model
names alone don't tell reviewers much — the prompt harness and skills
matter just as much.

Also adds two new guidance sections:
- Pull request size: encourage splitting prep commits out separately
- Commit messages and text: remind agents that natural language can't
  be machine-checked, so humans should own the commit message prose

Signed-off-by: Colin Walters <walters@verbum.org>
@cgwalters cgwalters marked this pull request as ready for review June 22, 2026 19:08
@cgwalters cgwalters requested a review from Copilot June 22, 2026 20:26

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Pull request overview

Updates AGENTS.md to align this repo’s AI-attribution guidance with the Kubernetes community approach: disclose AI assistance in the PR description (not via commit trailers), and adds additional guidance aimed at improving reviewability and human ownership of prose.

Changes:

  • Replaces the prior “Assisted-by” commit-trailer recommendation with a policy to disclose AI assistance in the PR description and explicitly prohibits AI credit trailers.
  • Adds guidance encouraging smaller PRs by splitting preparatory work into separately reviewable PRs.
  • Adds guidance encouraging humans to author/verify commit-message prose and review other natural-language text for accuracy.

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Comment thread common/AGENTS.md
- "I used a LLM to generate just unit tests."
- "This code was written in part with the assistance of generative AI."
- "A LLM was used to generate almost all of the code, but I am knowledgeable in this problem domain and reviewed it carefully."
- "This code is generated, I am only partially knowledgable in this domain."
Comment thread common/AGENTS.md
- "This code was written in part with the assistance of generative AI."
- "A LLM was used to generate almost all of the code, but I am knowledgeable in this problem domain and reviewed it carefully."
- "This code is generated, I am only partially knowledgable in this domain."
- "Code is LLM generated; I don't know the progamming language but it did fix the problem."
Comment thread common/AGENTS.md
Comment on lines +31 to +33
(The closer the commits are to being *entirely* AI, the more likely
it is that you should submit the PR as a draft, or even file an
issue first with a proposed design)
Comment thread common/AGENTS.md
Comment on lines +54 to +55
When responding to review comments (and commenting in general) similarly
that should be using your own written language by default.
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2 participants