Hi all,

I must say I'm not very enthusiastic about adding such a flag. If there is
a malicious intention, this flag will obviously not be enabled. If we're
talking about code quality and risks, I would consider that having AI in
the loop is not a sign of lower quality or higher risks to me.
Then, if this flag has a default value, the level of confidence will be
very low.
So I personally don't see an added value for this.

I personally would rather try to use AI to actually do the reviews of the
plugins, remove the human in the loop (at least at the first round), where
a human is actually not good at. But I think this is already under
discussion, and probably not the original topic, but somehow related.

Cheers,
Denis


Le lun. 9 févr. 2026 à 18:48, Régis Haubourg via QGIS-Developer <
[email protected]> a écrit :

> Hi, I agree AI is making the plugin's ecosystem being boosted, with all
> the good and bad sides you mentioned.
>
> I like the idea of a field in metadata.txt for a spontaneous disclosure.
> From what we see on PR's or security disclosures is that some AI users are
> reluctant to reveal they worked with AI. And probably, many dev's will use
> a bit of AI autocompletion most of the time.
> It takes some rounds of discussions to spot that they don't fully
> understand the code they produced, which is the famous AI slop.
> So in my opinion, we should be able to use a `ai_possible_derivative` flag
> as moderators, from the plugin's catalog. Maybe it is time to set up a full
> community discussion and voting system, just as internet browsers do for
> plugins.
>  One should be able to signal a malicious, or badly coded plugin
> triggering crashes. And moderators should be able to ban / alert / flag
> plugins beyond the volontary metadata.txt tooling. And maybe we would have
> to add automated scanners for security security, code smells, and now AI
> smells..
>
> Maybe Lova could tell us about ho this is doable, and if we have the
> resources to do this this year.
>
> Cheers
> Régis
>
>
> On 2/9/26 14:36, Admire Nyakudya via QGIS-Developer wrote:
>
> Dear All
>
> The rapid proliferation of AI tools has led to a noticeable increase in
> QGIS plugins being created and uploaded to the registry.
>
> The bonus points for these new plugin are:
>
>    - functionality gaps are being filled faster
>    - workflows are consolidated
>    - innovation is happening at pace.
>
>
> However, it also introduces new challenges for the QGIS plugin ecosystem,
> particularly around trust, review, and governance.
>
> While responsibility ultimately lies with end users to decide which
> plugins they trust, the growing use of AI-assisted or AI-generated code
> raises additional concerns beyond those already discussed in recent QGIS
> pull requests/code base related to AI usage.
>
> The plugin approval process relies heavily on volunteer effort and with
> the many plugins being uploaded we have to rely heavily on authors to
> submit high-quality, secure, and maintainable code.
>
> The plugin review process is not focused on code review but does so in
> limited circumstances. End users rely on author reputation, plugin ratings—
> as indicators to trust the plugin quality and usefulness.
>
> To improve transparency and support informed decision-making, it may be
> worth introducing an optional metadata flag in *metadata.txt*, for
> example:
>
> *ai_derivative = yes*
>
> All existing plugins could default to no, with the flag applied to new or
> updated plugins going forward. This would not act as a quality judgement,
> but rather as a disclosure mechanism, allowing users to filter plugins and
> assess trust based on their own criteria, alongside authorship and plugin
> rating.
>
> Regards
>
> Admire (Active plugin reviewer)
>
> --
>
> GIS Engineer
>
> Location: Geolocate me here <https://w3w.co/amused.thunder.wins>
>
> Phone: +27639664031
>
> Email: [email protected]
>
> Social Media:
>
>    - LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazano-gis-geek>
>    - GitHub <https://github.com/NyakudyaA>
>
>
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