My thought is that we can have some tooling help (blocking or just making gentle reminders, to at least catch the common case of `Co-authored-by:.*<agent>'. Today we have quite the mix of conventions, so anything consuming commits already merged certainly needs to be pretty flexible.
-MDB On Wed, Sep 23, 2026 at 11:21 AM Ian Maxon <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks for this, Mike. Things change fast in this area. I had heard > some vague rumblings on other lists that more specific guidance was > coming from within the ASF in this area, I suppose the updates in > August are somehow part of that. > I think your interpretation of Section 7 and 5 in the ICLA is right. I > also agree Generated-By and Co-Authored-By both miss something, and > give credit where it isn't due in many cases. Assisted-By seems more > correct. > Your proposal on changing the footer to Assisted-by: with the > specified format seems great to me. I also agree on point 3. > Undoubtedly it will take a while for reviewers to reflexively reject > commits without this specific footer, so the tooling needs to be > flexible. > > On Wed, Sep 23, 2026 at 8:00 AM Michael Blow <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > In February we voted to note AI/LLM tool use in commit footers [1]. > > I'm fully behind the rule. I'd like to propose one small change to its > > wording: name the trailer "Assisted-by:" instead of "Generated-by:". > > > > Since that vote, the ASF generative tooling guidance [2] has been > > revised; it now describes itself as reflecting August 2026. The new > > text addresses authorship directly. Under ICLA section 5, every > > contribution states that it is the contributor's original creation. > > ICLA section 7, the route for submitting work that is *not* your own, > > needs complete details of the work's source. The guidance notes that > > for AI output those details are generally unknowable, so section 7 "is > > not a practical route" for contributing AI-generated material. In other > > words, the only way AI-assisted work comes into an ASF project is as > > the contributor's own work, with real human authorship in it. The > > guidance cites the US Copyright Office's position that prompts alone > > are generally not enough. > > > > A trailer saying a change was *generated by* a tool describes exactly > > the case the guidance says we can't accept. It isn't what we mean > > either: our own rule expects qualifying commits to mix generated and > > hand-written code, and even the generated parts are prompted, steered, > > rewritten and reviewed by the committer. > > > > When I started on this, my intent was to propose we align on > > "Co-authored-by:" instead. It's the most common convention, it's what > > several AI coding tools add by default, and it does reflect that the > > work is shared. Reading the revised guidance changed my mind. > > "Co-authored-by:" names the tool as a second author. But the tool > > can't make the section 5 statement, and the guidance rules out section > > 7 as a way to bring in work that isn't the contributor's own. So a > > co-author trailer claims authorship that, as far as I can tell, the > > ASF framework has no room for. It seems to sit in the same conflict as > > "Generated-by:", just from the other side. > > > > "Assisted-by:" avoids both problems. It says what is actually true: a > > human author, responsible under section 5, who used a tool. > > > > This fits the guidance's own wording. It recommends marking tool use > > with a token in the commit message, giving "Generated-by:" only "for > > example", and its stated aim is a machine-parsable record for future > > Tooling-Provenance tooling. Any fixed token serves that. > > > > Other projects have settled on the same name. The Linux kernel's > > coding-assistants policy uses > > > > Assisted-by: AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION [TOOLS] > > > > [3], and Fedora's AI-assisted contributions policy recommends an > > "Assisted-by:" trailer [4]. Using the same name means contributors and > > tooling see one convention across projects. > > > > Concretely, I propose: > > > > 1. Replace "Generated-by:" with "Assisted-by:" in the voted rule. > > Everything else stays as passed: the "substantial portions" > > threshold, the committer's duty to check tool output against the > > ASF guidance, and the encouragement to mark generated regions in > > code. > > > > 2. Recommended format, adapted from the kernel's convention [3]: > > > > Assisted-by: <agent>:<model> > > > > naming the agent or tool whose terms govern the output, and the > > model version. One line per agent/model that materially > > contributed, in the trailer block alongside Change-Id. For example: > > > > Assisted-by: Claude Code:claude-opus-5-5 > > > > 3. Existing "Generated-by:" footers stay as they are. Tooling that > > scans history should accept both. > > > > I considered keeping "Generated-by:" for commits that are entirely > > tool-produced, but under the revised guidance a contribution with no > > human authorship can't satisfy section 5, and anything that isn't > > copyrightable (version bumps, mechanical renames) needs no special > > label. One trailer, plus the in-code markers we already encourage, > > seems cleaner. > > > > If this seems reasonable, I'll start a [VOTE] after a few days of > > discussion. > > > > Thanks, > > Michael > > > > [1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/b3wthg3yz0m0p0rzr6j3dd8fgdh4wf6z > > [2] https://www.apache.org/legal/generative-tooling.html > > [3] https://docs.kernel.org/process/coding-assistants.html > > [4] > > https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/council-policy-proposal-policy-on-ai-assisted-contributions/
