[RFC] docs: netdev: additional info requirements for bug fixes

[RFC] docs: netdev: additional info requirements for bug fixes

[Jakub Kicinski]

Knowing how AI generated patches were tested would be great help
when reviewing them. Explicitly ask people to describe discovery
and validation process they followed.

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
---
 Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 28 +++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 28 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
index ec7b9aa2877f..ffec42effe66 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
@@ -263,6 +263,34 @@ as a patch to the list with a commit message explaining the technical
 problems with the reverted commit. Reverts should be used as a last resort,
 when original change is completely wrong; incremental fixes are preferred.
 
+Bug fixes
+~~~~~~~~~
+
+All bug fixes must clearly state how the issue was discovered and validated,
+and how the fix was tested. This should be done in plain English, not with
+special tags or annotations.
+
+Example statements describing discovery:
+
+- discovered by a non-AI static analysis tool.
+- discovered by an AI code review agent.
+- discovered by manual code inspection.
+- triggered during code development.
+- triggered in CI testing.
+- observed on a machine in real use.
+
+If the issue was not observed in reality (e.g. it was caught by an AI tool
+or manual code inspection), the next sentence should describe the
+reproduction. The reproduction should state whether kernel modifications
+were necessary (e.g. inserting a delay to widen the race). The commit message
+must disclose if error injection or loading a special kernel module was used
+to trigger the issue. The reproduction steps should be included in the commit
+message if they are short (roughly 10 lines or fewer); longer reproducers can
+be posted online with a link included.
+
+The testing statement should explain whether the fix was tested against the
+reproducer and against kernel selftests.
+
 Stable tree
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [RFC] docs: netdev: additional info requirements for bug fixes

[Jakub Kicinski]

On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:47:24 -0700 Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> +All bug fixes must clearly state how the issue was discovered and validated,
> +and how the fix was tested. This should be done in plain English, not with
> +special tags or annotations.
> +
> +Example statements describing discovery:
> +
> +- discovered by a non-AI static analysis tool.
> +- discovered by an AI code review agent.
> +- discovered by manual code inspection.
> +- triggered during code development.
> +- triggered in CI testing.
> +- observed on a machine in real use.
> +
> +If the issue was not observed in reality (e.g. it was caught by an AI tool
> +or manual code inspection), the next sentence should describe the
> +reproduction. The reproduction should state whether kernel modifications
> +were necessary (e.g. inserting a delay to widen the race). The commit message
> +must disclose if error injection or loading a special kernel module was used
> +to trigger the issue. The reproduction steps should be included in the commit
> +message if they are short (roughly 10 lines or fewer); longer reproducers can
> +be posted online with a link included.
> +
> +The testing statement should explain whether the fix was tested against the
> +reproducer and against kernel selftests.

We should probably also add that the commit message of a fix must
describe the impact to the user.

FWIW the intention is that we'd either quote this text at people
until they comply or even get an AI bot looking at all patches coming
in and deciding if commit message is good enough. With some tuning
LLM should be able to check that the 4 items are covered.

Re: [RFC] docs: netdev: additional info requirements for bug fixes

[Sabrina Dubroca]

2026-07-27, 15:25:17 -0700, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:47:24 -0700 Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> > +All bug fixes must clearly state how the issue was discovered and validated,
> > +and how the fix was tested. This should be done in plain English, not with
> > +special tags or annotations.
> > +
> > +Example statements describing discovery:
> > +
> > +- discovered by a non-AI static analysis tool.
> > +- discovered by an AI code review agent.
> > +- discovered by manual code inspection.
> > +- triggered during code development.
> > +- triggered in CI testing.
> > +- observed on a machine in real use.
> > +
> > +If the issue was not observed in reality (e.g. it was caught by an AI tool
> > +or manual code inspection), the next sentence should describe the
> > +reproduction. The reproduction should state whether kernel modifications
> > +were necessary (e.g. inserting a delay to widen the race). The commit message
> > +must disclose if error injection or loading a special kernel module was used
> > +to trigger the issue. The reproduction steps should be included in the commit
> > +message if they are short (roughly 10 lines or fewer); longer reproducers can
> > +be posted online with a link included.
> > +
> > +The testing statement should explain whether the fix was tested against the
> > +reproducer and against kernel selftests.
> 
> We should probably also add that the commit message of a fix must
> describe the impact to the user.
> 
> FWIW the intention is that we'd either quote this text at people
> until they comply or even get an AI bot looking at all patches coming
> in and deciding if commit message is good enough. With some tuning
> LLM should be able to check that the 4 items are covered.

I see what you're trying to do, but making regular contributors append
2 paragraphs to their commit messages (or ask their LLM to generate
them, and also fight for an hour to get a reproducer that actually
does something) just to check the box seems painful. Reading the git
log with all this stuff mixed in will be worse.

As someone who's probably never sent a compliant patch, and who has a
tendency to forget new rules (especially those that are inconvenient):
meh. I don't think the commit messages we've been writing all this
time have been so bad.

OTOH maybe that's the only way to handle the volume of AI slop
"fixes". 2 more paragraphs when the commit for a trivial 1-line fix is
already 2 pages long doesn't make much difference.

-- 
Sabrina