On 24 September 2026 16:20:15 BST, Sasha Levin <[email protected]> wrote: >On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 04:08:08PM +0100, Bradley Morgan wrote: >> On 24 September 2026 14:49:45 BST, Sasha Levin <[email protected]> >wrote: >>> Most coding agents have standardized on AGENTS.md as the file they load >>> automatically from the root of a repository. README already tells AI >>> tools to read and follow Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst, >>> but that only helps if the agent decides to read README before acting, >>> which in practice it often doesn't. >>> >>> Add a top-level AGENTS.md symlink to README, so agents load it on their >>> own and follow its pointer to the AI guidelines. This keeps a single >>> entry point for every reader, and avoids adding a separate copy of the >>> policy that could drift from the RST. >>> >>> As an example, two different agents were asked to "create a new commit >>> renaming the release (in the Makefile) to AI Test". >>> >>> Without AGENTS.md, the first agent added a Signed-off-by for the user >on >>> its own. It should never have done that: only the human submitter can >>> certify the Developer Certificate of Origin, after reviewing the >change. >>> It also used its own attribution tag instead of Assisted-by: >>> >>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test >>>> >>>> Co-Authored-By: <model name> <noreply@...> >>>> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <[email protected]> >>> >>> The second agent added no attribution at all: >>> >>>> Rename release to AI Test >>> >>> With AGENTS.md in place, neither agent added a Signed-off-by, and both >>> used the Assisted-by tag. README itself mentions neither tag, so both >>> agents followed its pointer to coding-assistants.rst: >>> >>>> Makefile: rename release to "AI Test" >>>> >>>> Change the release name from "Baby Opossum Posse" to "AI Test". >>>> >>>> Assisted-by: LLM >>> >>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test >>>> >>>> Assisted-by: LLM >>> >>> Both agents also followed the kernel's general guidelines more closely. >>> The second agent's subject gained the "subsystem: summary phrase" form >>> that submitting-patches.rst asks for, instead of a bare "Rename release >>> to AI Test", and the first agent added a body describing the change. >>> >>> Assisted-by: LLM >>> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <[email protected]> >> >> NAK, we could add to memories that to read soandso file before every >> patch, and then it wouldn't increase tokens then? > >Could you help me understand what you meant here? I'm aware some agents >use a >notion of "memories", but I don't think they standardized on it in any >way, nor >how we could incorporate them here? >
They use MEMORY.md sometimes. >And as far as I'm aware, nothing is free here - those "memories" still use >tokens. Not as much. > > --- Thanks! "I'm not a very positive person" - Linus torvalds
