[RFC PATCH v2 0/4] docs/devel, AGENTS.md: a completely new policy on AI-generated contributions

[RFC PATCH v2 0/4] docs/devel, AGENTS.md: a completely new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Paolo Bonzini]

WARNING: this is *intentionally* a full U-turn from the previous policy
and discussions.  This is not a refusal of the arguments presented in
those discussions.  It is also a request for comments, and not something
that is ready to go.

The reason to "try something else" is that previous discussion have come
to be a unanimity trap.  Attempting to introduce small carve-outs for
tests, for doc comments, for bugfixes did not work; each case will
have someone (rightfully) expressing disagreement and the only possible
equilibrium remains the current "no AI for code generation" policy.
The Rust project also acknowledged the impossibility of reaching a
widespread consensus on this topic.

Furthermore, we have clear signs that the current policy is not blocking
some contributors from posting AI-generated patches or even larger series,
most likely in good faith.  While the policy does not require maintainers
to police AI usage, "don't ask, don't tell" approaches are best treated as
a red flag.

At the same time, a free-for-all is not a good idea either.  Maintainers
will want to apply their own considerations (see [1] for a good list),
and I think we want to heed Conservancy's advice to not shun contributors
or maintainers belonging to either camp.

So let's make a new hypothesis: that the no-AI policy is an equilibrium
only because it's stable, not because it's good.  Attack the problem
from the point of view of maintainer burnout rather than copyright/DCO.
Apply a large perturbation, and see where *that* discussion takes us.

As usual, the text including the commit messages is informed by discussion
with plenty of people, mentioned in the Cc trailers of patch 1.

Paolo

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/CAFEAcA860fF_+ffk=cXiYyFoQo0wCSUJ6b=7nVLLCwKhP6Nwxw@mail.gmail.com/

Paolo Bonzini (4):
  docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions
  AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are
  AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process
  agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

 docs/devel/code-provenance.rst |  71 ++-----------
 docs/devel/index-process.rst   |   1 +
 docs/devel/llm-usage.rst       | 179 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 AGENTS.md                      | 116 +++++++++++++++++++++
 CLAUDE.md                      |   1 +
 GEMINI.md                      |   1 +
 6 files changed, 304 insertions(+), 65 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
 create mode 100644 AGENTS.md
 create mode 100644 CLAUDE.md
 create mode 100644 GEMINI.md

-- 
2.55.0

[PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Paolo Bonzini]

Until now QEMU's code provenance policy declined any contribution
believed to include or derive from AI-generated content.  A blanket ban
was easy to maintain while LLM output was rarely usable on its own, but
as the tools improved an absolute prohibition has become harder to
justify and enforce.

Even a simple code review task these days may result in the agent
suggesting code changes, or producing a useful test case to verify the
presence or absence of a bug.  A hardline interpretation of the policy
makes it hard to use AI even for tasks that are explicitly allowed.

On top of this, several maintainers have pointed out that contributions
that can be reasonably suspected to be AI-assisted or more have been
posted and included.  Some of these contributions are actually of very
high quality; it seems that the mailing list-based contribution process
has mostly protected QEMU from low quality patches.  A prohibition on
AI puts maintainers in a difficult position: on one hand the DCO process
lets them rely on the submitter's certification of origin, on the other
hand maintainers are supposed to know and implement the process policies.

Since the policy has been written, other projects have discussed and
taken their stance on AI contributions.  These vary from full prohibition
(though typically motivated by social reasons rather than legal, e.g.
for Zig) to limited use (e.g. GCC, allowing small contributions and
tests to use AI), to cautious experimentation.

This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious experimentation
approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by Software
Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative AI.

Conservancy in particular provides this point to alleviate the concern
that motivated the policy, about whether the submitter has the legal
right to contribute the code and about unintentional reproduction of
copyrighted code:

   "Copyleft Everything" remains the best viable and safest approach
   Certainly those who want to release FOSS under non-copyleft licenses
   have more to worry about when using these tools.

Therefore, the revised policy considers QEMU's copyleft to be a viable
approach to any unanswered legal questions about AI-generated
contributions and their copyright status.  This lets the policy
focus on the topic of what AI-assisted contributions require of
maintainers.

In that respect, the Rust project's policy combines two unusual ideas.
One is to hold them to a higher standard, in the spirit of using AI to
work "better, not faster"; the other is to require "pre-arrangement" for
"changes that are originally created by an LLM".  AI lowers the cost of
producing a patch but does nothing to lower the cost of understanding
and reviewing one; if anything it raises it, since a reviewer can
no longer assume that the submitter has reasoned through every line.
Pre-arrangement is an attempt to balance the shift of effort from the
developer to the maintainer, and the QEMU policy includes the same
provision.

Going full circle to the reason why we might need to review the
policy, there is the question of how to make sure policy is applied.
QEMU maintainers have already experimented with using AGENTS.md files;
subsequent patches will also try to embody the "work better, not faster"
mantra into an AGENTS.md file.  Nevertheless, some explicit prohibitions
should be included in the policy, and they are indeed.  The list is short
and based on the Rust policy and the GStreamer AGENTS.md file.

Revise the policy according to the above considerations, and introduce the
"AI-used-for:" trailer as a record of where AI was used.  The standard is
slightly different from the more usual "Assisted-by"; the intention is for
the metadata to provide more information for reviewers to judge the result.

In any case, use of AI does not relax any other contribution requirement:
authors still comply with the DCO and take responsibility for the whole
patch via Signed-off-by.

[Commit message largely based on discussions with Daniel Berrangé,
 Alistair Francis, Peter Maydell, Kevin Wolf and others. - Paolo]

Cc: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com>
Cc: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
Cc: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>
Cc: BALATON Zoltan <balaton@eik.bme.hu>
Cc: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
Cc: Fabiano Rosas <farosas@suse.de>
Cc: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
Cc: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>
Cc: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
Cc: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@linaro.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/20260524083329-mutt-send-email-mst@kernel.org/T/
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <bonzini@gnu.org>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
---
 docs/devel/code-provenance.rst |  71 ++-----------
 docs/devel/index-process.rst   |   1 +
 docs/devel/llm-usage.rst       | 183 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 190 insertions(+), 65 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 docs/devel/llm-usage.rst

diff --git a/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst b/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst
index 65b8f232a08..7403961378e 100644
--- a/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst
@@ -128,6 +128,10 @@ that are commonly used during QEMU development:
    suggestions for how to change a patch, it is good practice to credit them
    by including a ``Suggested-by`` tag.
 
+ * **AI-used-for**: when AI/LLM tools were used to produce the patch, this tag
+   discloses what they were used for.  See :ref:`llm-usage` for the cases in
+   which it is required.
+
 Subsystem maintainer requirements
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
@@ -282,68 +286,5 @@ boilerplate code template which is then filled in to produce the final patch.
 The output of such a tool would still be considered the "preferred format",
 since it is intended to be a foundation for further human authored changes.
 Such tools are acceptable to use, provided there is clearly defined copyright
-and licensing for their output. Note in particular the caveats applying to AI
-content generators below.
-
-Use of AI-generated content
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-TL;DR:
-
-  **Current QEMU project policy is to DECLINE any contributions which are
-  believed to include or derive from AI generated content. This includes
-  ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Llama and similar tools.**
-
-  **This policy does not apply to other uses of AI, such as researching APIs
-  or algorithms, static analysis, or debugging, provided their output is not
-  included in contributions.**
-
-The increasing prevalence of AI-assisted software development results in a
-number of difficult legal questions and risks for software projects, including
-QEMU.  Of particular concern is content generated by `Large Language Models
-<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model>`__ (LLMs).
-
-The QEMU community requires that contributors certify their patch submissions
-are made in accordance with the rules of the `Developer's Certificate of
-Origin (DCO) <dco>`.
-
-To satisfy the DCO, the patch contributor has to fully understand the
-copyright and license status of content they are contributing to QEMU. With AI
-content generators, the copyright and license status of the output is
-ill-defined with no generally accepted, settled legal foundation.
-
-Where the training material is known, it is common for it to include large
-volumes of material under restrictive licensing/copyright terms. Even where
-the training material is all known to be under open source licenses, it is
-likely to be under a variety of terms, not all of which will be compatible
-with QEMU's licensing requirements.
-
-How contributors could comply with DCO terms (b) or (c) for the output of AI
-content generators commonly available today is unclear.  The QEMU project is
-not willing or able to accept the legal risks of non-compliance.
-
-The QEMU project thus requires that contributors refrain from using AI content
-generators on patches intended to be submitted to the project, and will
-decline any contribution if use of AI is either known or suspected.
-
-Examples of tools impacted by this policy includes GitHub's CoPilot, OpenAI's
-ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Meta's Code Llama, and code/content
-generation agents which are built on top of such tools.
-
-This policy may evolve as AI tools mature and the legal situation is
-clarified.
-
-Exceptions
-^^^^^^^^^^
-
-The QEMU project welcomes discussion on any exceptions to this policy,
-or more general revisions. This can be done by contacting the qemu-devel
-mailing list with details of a proposed tool, model, usage scenario, etc.
-that is beneficial to QEMU, while still mitigating issues around compliance
-with the DCO.  After discussion, any exception will be listed below.
-
-Exceptions do not remove the need for authors to comply with all other
-requirements for contribution.  In particular, the "Signed-off-by"
-label in a patch submission is a statement that the author takes
-responsibility for the entire contents of the patch, including any parts
-that were generated or assisted by AI tools or other tools.
+and licensing for their output. Note in particular the caveats applying to
+:ref:`AI content generators <llm-usage>`.
diff --git a/docs/devel/index-process.rst b/docs/devel/index-process.rst
index 5807752d704..ce0f4e73197 100644
--- a/docs/devel/index-process.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/index-process.rst
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ Notes about how to interact with the community and how and where to submit patch
    maintainers
    style
    submitting-a-patch
+   llm-usage
    code-provenance
    trivial-patches
    stable-process
diff --git a/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst b/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a62b24d0292
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,183 @@
+.. _llm-usage:
+
+AI-generated content
+====================
+
+.. warning::
+
+   Please read the below policy before using AI to contribute code or
+   documentation to QEMU.  This applies to ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot,
+   Llama, and similar tools.
+
+The QEMU project does not want to introduce restrictions on the tools
+that contributors use for their work on the project.  However,
+the increasing prevalence of AI-assisted software development,
+and especially the use of content generated by `Large Language Models
+<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model>`__ (LLMs),
+poses a number of difficult questions.
+
+Risks to open source projects include maintainer burnout from an
+increased number of contributions, as well as the risk to the project
+from unintentional inclusion of copyrighted material in the LLM's output.
+In order to mitigate these risks, the QEMU project limits the way
+in which use of the output of generative AI can be included
+in contributions to QEMU.
+
+The main guidelines for use of generative AI tools are roughly
+as follows:
+
+- It's fine to use LLMs to answer questions, analyze, distill,
+  refine, check, suggest, review. Use of LLMs to *create* is limited.
+
+- If in doubt, disclose any use of AI tools other than simple code
+  completion and code review.
+
+- LLMs are allowed as a tool to write *better*, not *faster*.
+
+.. note:: **Use of AI does not remove the need for authors to comply
+          with all other requirements for contribution.**  In particular,
+          the ``Signed-off-by`` label in a patch submission is a statement
+          that the author takes responsibility for the entire contents of
+          the patch, certifying that their patch submission is made in
+          accordance with the rules of the `Developer's Certificate of
+          Origin (DCO) <dco>`.
+
+Prohibited use of AI
+''''''''''''''''''''
+
+The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
+
+- cover letters and commit messages
+
+- responses to reviewer comments
+
+- issue descriptions or comments
+
+Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.
+
+Repeated violations of this rule may be treated as a :ref:`code_of_conduct`
+violation.
+
+An exception is made for issues for defects detected by specialized
+tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection. Such issues
+must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by a human
+and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but including
+the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly allowed.
+
+LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
+
+Use of generative AI tools for code contributions generally falls into
+four buckets:
+
+- "background" assistance, such as completion and code review.  This does
+  not need disclosure, however you are expected to examine and understand
+  any code or any changes produced by the tool.
+
+- small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of code)
+  are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple parts
+  is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent posting
+  of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
+
+- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test case, a
+  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help performing
+  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but disclosure
+  is recommended.
+
+- large, heavily LLM-assisted contributions where LLMs write large parts
+  of functional code.  These are only allowed if *pre-arranged*,
+  *high-quality* and *well-tested*.
+
+The last case (*"LLM-created contribution"*) is the one that requires
+a more careful approach.  In particular:
+
+- "Pre-arranged" means that a maintainer has communicated ahead of time,
+  for example on `IRC or the QEMU mailing
+  list <https://www.qemu.org/contribute/>`__, that they are willing
+  to review an LLM-created contribution.
+
+- "High-quality" means that the contributor must apply the same judgment
+  that would be applied to other code changes.  Contributors must invest
+  substantial time reviewing their contributions, curating them, and
+  understanding them in depth; in particular, you are still expected to
+  :ref:`understand and explain your changes
+  <write_a_meaningful_commit_message>` and the rationale behind them.
+
+- "Well-tested" means the LLM-created contributions will be held to a
+  higher standard than human-created ones, because LLMs make it easier
+  to write tests.  There are no exceptions for "writing the tests seems
+  hard" or for `yak shaving <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>`__.
+
+Commit messages for AI-assisted changes
+'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
+
+In order to disclose your usage of AI/LLM tools, add an ``AI-used-for:``
+line before the :ref:`Signed-off-by <code-provenance>` line.  The trailer
+satisfies your disclosure obligations and is also a guide to reviewers.  The
+text is one or more of ``code``, ``tests``, ``docs``, ``analysis``, possibly
+followed by an explanation in parentheses:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+     AI-used-for: tests, docs
+     AI-used-for: code
+     AI-used-for: code (refactoring)
+     AI-used-for: code (prototype)
+     AI-used-for: analysis
+
+``AI-used-for`` should not be included for "background" usage such as
+autocomplete or obtaining a pre-review of the patch.  It can be included
+however even if not required by the policy.
+
+There is no requirement to include your prompts or summarize the
+conversation in the commit message or cover letter.
+
+QEMU does *not* use ``Assisted-by``, ``Co-authored-by`` or ``Generated-by``
+trailers to indicate AI usage.  In particular, it is not necessary to
+specify the exact AI model or tool used to create the commit.
+
+Deterministic tooling (sed, coccinelle, formatters) is out of scope for
+the trailer, but should be mentioned in the commit message.
+
+Motivation
+''''''''''
+
+There is not a consensus within the QEMU project---and likely never will
+be---about when/how/where it is acceptable to use AI-based tools.  Many
+members of the QEMU project and community find value in AI; many others
+feel that its negative impact on society and the climate are severe enough
+that no use is acceptable.  Still others are working out their opinion.
+
+In accordance with Software Freedom Conservancy's recommendations:
+
+- the project seeks to both support those contributors who outright reject
+  generative AI systems, and to not shun those who choose to use them;
+
+- we consider QEMU's copyleft to be a viable approach to the unanswered
+  legal questions about AI-generated contributions and their copyright
+  status;
+
+- we encourage contributors not to overuse AI, and to *add* LLMs to
+  their existing skills and tools instead of replacing them.
+
+A common source of grief for maintainers is the (often valid) impression
+that AI enables contributions without understanding the effort they take
+for those who process them.  Effectively, this shifts a major part of the
+burden from the contributors to the maintainers---the scarcest resource
+in any free software project, not just QEMU.  Pre-arrangement, and the
+size limit for small contributions, try to avoid putting extra demand
+on maintainers due to LLM-assisted work.
+
+
+Sources
+'''''''
+
+This policy was informed by:
+
+- `Recommendations When Using LLM-backed Generative AI Systems for
+  FOSS Contributions <https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/llm-backed-generative-ai-recommendations.html>`__
+
+- `Rust project LLM Usage Policy <https://forge.rust-lang.org/policies/llm-usage.html>`__
+
+- `GStreamer AGENTS.md file <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/blob/d08375499c279/AGENTS.md>`__
+
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Alistair Francis]

On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Until now QEMU's code provenance policy declined any contribution
> believed to include or derive from AI-generated content.  A blanket
> ban
> was easy to maintain while LLM output was rarely usable on its own,
> but
> as the tools improved an absolute prohibition has become harder to
> justify and enforce.
> 
> Even a simple code review task these days may result in the agent
> suggesting code changes, or producing a useful test case to verify
> the
> presence or absence of a bug.  A hardline interpretation of the
> policy
> makes it hard to use AI even for tasks that are explicitly allowed.
> 
> On top of this, several maintainers have pointed out that
> contributions
> that can be reasonably suspected to be AI-assisted or more have been
> posted and included.  Some of these contributions are actually of
> very
> high quality; it seems that the mailing list-based contribution
> process
> has mostly protected QEMU from low quality patches.  A prohibition on
> AI puts maintainers in a difficult position: on one hand the DCO
> process
> lets them rely on the submitter's certification of origin, on the
> other
> hand maintainers are supposed to know and implement the process
> policies.
> 
> Since the policy has been written, other projects have discussed and
> taken their stance on AI contributions.  These vary from full
> prohibition
> (though typically motivated by social reasons rather than legal, e.g.
> for Zig) to limited use (e.g. GCC, allowing small contributions and
> tests to use AI), to cautious experimentation.
> 
> This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious experimentation
> approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by
> Software
> Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative AI.
> 
> Conservancy in particular provides this point to alleviate the
> concern
> that motivated the policy, about whether the submitter has the legal
> right to contribute the code and about unintentional reproduction of
> copyrighted code:
> 
>    "Copyleft Everything" remains the best viable and safest approach
>    Certainly those who want to release FOSS under non-copyleft
> licenses
>    have more to worry about when using these tools.
> 
> Therefore, the revised policy considers QEMU's copyleft to be a
> viable
> approach to any unanswered legal questions about AI-generated
> contributions and their copyright status.  This lets the policy
> focus on the topic of what AI-assisted contributions require of
> maintainers.
> 
> In that respect, the Rust project's policy combines two unusual
> ideas.
> One is to hold them to a higher standard, in the spirit of using AI
> to
> work "better, not faster"; the other is to require "pre-arrangement"
> for
> "changes that are originally created by an LLM".  AI lowers the cost
> of
> producing a patch but does nothing to lower the cost of understanding
> and reviewing one; if anything it raises it, since a reviewer can
> no longer assume that the submitter has reasoned through every line.
> Pre-arrangement is an attempt to balance the shift of effort from the
> developer to the maintainer, and the QEMU policy includes the same
> provision.
> 
> Going full circle to the reason why we might need to review the
> policy, there is the question of how to make sure policy is applied.
> QEMU maintainers have already experimented with using AGENTS.md
> files;
> subsequent patches will also try to embody the "work better, not
> faster"
> mantra into an AGENTS.md file.  Nevertheless, some explicit
> prohibitions
> should be included in the policy, and they are indeed.  The list is
> short
> and based on the Rust policy and the GStreamer AGENTS.md file.
> 
> Revise the policy according to the above considerations, and
> introduce the
> "AI-used-for:" trailer as a record of where AI was used.  The
> standard is
> slightly different from the more usual "Assisted-by"; the intention
> is for
> the metadata to provide more information for reviewers to judge the
> result.
> 
> In any case, use of AI does not relax any other contribution
> requirement:
> authors still comply with the DCO and take responsibility for the
> whole
> patch via Signed-off-by.
> 
> [Commit message largely based on discussions with Daniel Berrangé,
>  Alistair Francis, Peter Maydell, Kevin Wolf and others. - Paolo]
> 
> Cc: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com>
> Cc: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
> Cc: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>
> Cc: BALATON Zoltan <balaton@eik.bme.hu>
> Cc: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
> Cc: Fabiano Rosas <farosas@suse.de>
> Cc: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
> Cc: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>
> Cc: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
> Cc: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@linaro.org>
> Link:
> https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/20260524083329-mutt-send-email-mst@kernel.org/T/
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <bonzini@gnu.org>
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> ---
>  docs/devel/code-provenance.rst |  71 ++-----------
>  docs/devel/index-process.rst   |   1 +
>  docs/devel/llm-usage.rst       | 183
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 190 insertions(+), 65 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
> 
> diff --git a/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst b/docs/devel/code-
> provenance.rst
> index 65b8f232a08..7403961378e 100644
> --- a/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst
> +++ b/docs/devel/code-provenance.rst
> @@ -128,6 +128,10 @@ that are commonly used during QEMU development:
>     suggestions for how to change a patch, it is good practice to
> credit them
>     by including a ``Suggested-by`` tag.
>  
> + * **AI-used-for**: when AI/LLM tools were used to produce the
> patch, this tag
> +   discloses what they were used for.  See :ref:`llm-usage` for the
> cases in
> +   which it is required.
> +
>  Subsystem maintainer requirements
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  
> @@ -282,68 +286,5 @@ boilerplate code template which is then filled
> in to produce the final patch.
>  The output of such a tool would still be considered the "preferred
> format",
>  since it is intended to be a foundation for further human authored
> changes.
>  Such tools are acceptable to use, provided there is clearly defined
> copyright
> -and licensing for their output. Note in particular the caveats
> applying to AI
> -content generators below.
> -
> -Use of AI-generated content
> -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> -
> -TL;DR:
> -
> -  **Current QEMU project policy is to DECLINE any contributions
> which are
> -  believed to include or derive from AI generated content. This
> includes
> -  ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Llama and similar tools.**
> -
> -  **This policy does not apply to other uses of AI, such as
> researching APIs
> -  or algorithms, static analysis, or debugging, provided their
> output is not
> -  included in contributions.**
> -
> -The increasing prevalence of AI-assisted software development
> results in a
> -number of difficult legal questions and risks for software projects,
> including
> -QEMU.  Of particular concern is content generated by `Large Language
> Models
> -<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model>`__ (LLMs).
> -
> -The QEMU community requires that contributors certify their patch
> submissions
> -are made in accordance with the rules of the `Developer's
> Certificate of
> -Origin (DCO) <dco>`.
> -
> -To satisfy the DCO, the patch contributor has to fully understand
> the
> -copyright and license status of content they are contributing to
> QEMU. With AI
> -content generators, the copyright and license status of the output
> is
> -ill-defined with no generally accepted, settled legal foundation.
> -
> -Where the training material is known, it is common for it to include
> large
> -volumes of material under restrictive licensing/copyright terms.
> Even where
> -the training material is all known to be under open source licenses,
> it is
> -likely to be under a variety of terms, not all of which will be
> compatible
> -with QEMU's licensing requirements.
> -
> -How contributors could comply with DCO terms (b) or (c) for the
> output of AI
> -content generators commonly available today is unclear.  The QEMU
> project is
> -not willing or able to accept the legal risks of non-compliance.
> -
> -The QEMU project thus requires that contributors refrain from using
> AI content
> -generators on patches intended to be submitted to the project, and
> will
> -decline any contribution if use of AI is either known or suspected.
> -
> -Examples of tools impacted by this policy includes GitHub's CoPilot,
> OpenAI's
> -ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Meta's Code Llama, and code/content
> -generation agents which are built on top of such tools.
> -
> -This policy may evolve as AI tools mature and the legal situation is
> -clarified.
> -
> -Exceptions
> -^^^^^^^^^^
> -
> -The QEMU project welcomes discussion on any exceptions to this
> policy,
> -or more general revisions. This can be done by contacting the qemu-
> devel
> -mailing list with details of a proposed tool, model, usage scenario,
> etc.
> -that is beneficial to QEMU, while still mitigating issues around
> compliance
> -with the DCO.  After discussion, any exception will be listed below.
> -
> -Exceptions do not remove the need for authors to comply with all
> other
> -requirements for contribution.  In particular, the "Signed-off-by"
> -label in a patch submission is a statement that the author takes
> -responsibility for the entire contents of the patch, including any
> parts
> -that were generated or assisted by AI tools or other tools.
> +and licensing for their output. Note in particular the caveats
> applying to
> +:ref:`AI content generators <llm-usage>`.
> diff --git a/docs/devel/index-process.rst b/docs/devel/index-
> process.rst
> index 5807752d704..ce0f4e73197 100644
> --- a/docs/devel/index-process.rst
> +++ b/docs/devel/index-process.rst
> @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ Notes about how to interact with the community and
> how and where to submit patch
>     maintainers
>     style
>     submitting-a-patch
> +   llm-usage
>     code-provenance
>     trivial-patches
>     stable-process
> diff --git a/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst b/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..a62b24d0292
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/docs/devel/llm-usage.rst
> @@ -0,0 +1,183 @@
> +.. _llm-usage:
> +
> +AI-generated content
> +====================
> +
> +.. warning::
> +
> +   Please read the below policy before using AI to contribute code
> or
> +   documentation to QEMU.  This applies to ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot,
> +   Llama, and similar tools.
> +
> +The QEMU project does not want to introduce restrictions on the
> tools
> +that contributors use for their work on the project.  However,
> +the increasing prevalence of AI-assisted software development,
> +and especially the use of content generated by `Large Language
> Models
> +<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model>`__ (LLMs),
> +poses a number of difficult questions.
> +
> +Risks to open source projects include maintainer burnout from an
> +increased number of contributions, as well as the risk to the
> project
> +from unintentional inclusion of copyrighted material in the LLM's
> output.
> +In order to mitigate these risks, the QEMU project limits the way
> +in which use of the output of generative AI can be included
> +in contributions to QEMU.
> +
> +The main guidelines for use of generative AI tools are roughly
> +as follows:
> +
> +- It's fine to use LLMs to answer questions, analyze, distill,
> +  refine, check, suggest, review. Use of LLMs to *create* is
> limited.
> +
> +- If in doubt, disclose any use of AI tools other than simple code
> +  completion and code review.
> +
> +- LLMs are allowed as a tool to write *better*, not *faster*.
> +
> +.. note:: **Use of AI does not remove the need for authors to comply
> +          with all other requirements for contribution.**  In
> particular,
> +          the ``Signed-off-by`` label in a patch submission is a
> statement
> +          that the author takes responsibility for the entire
> contents of
> +          the patch, certifying that their patch submission is made
> in
> +          accordance with the rules of the `Developer's Certificate
> of
> +          Origin (DCO) <dco>`.
> +
> +Prohibited use of AI
> +''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
> +
> +- cover letters and commit messages
> +
> +- responses to reviewer comments
> +
> +- issue descriptions or comments
> +
> +Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.

What about translations? Not everyone can write English well and I see
translations being useful.

> +
> +Repeated violations of this rule may be treated as a
> :ref:`code_of_conduct`
> +violation.
> +
> +An exception is made for issues for defects detected by specialized
> +tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection. Such
> issues
> +must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by a
> human
> +and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but
> including
> +the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly
> allowed.
> +
> +LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +Use of generative AI tools for code contributions generally falls
> into
> +four buckets:
> +
> +- "background" assistance, such as completion and code review.  This
> does
> +  not need disclosure, however you are expected to examine and
> understand
> +  any code or any changes produced by the tool.
> +
> +- small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of
> code)
> +  are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple
> parts
> +  is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent
> posting
> +  of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.

Maybe add something like (fell free to edit):

"""
When submitting LLM generated bug fixes the human should clearly
describe what the bug is, how it is triggered and how it impacted them.
The idea her is that we don't want people pointing an LLM at the source
and generating "bug fixes" for issues that users aren't seeing. This
can result in reviewer burnout.
"""

> +
> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test
> case, a
> +  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help performing
> +  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but
> disclosure
> +  is recommended.

disclosure should just be required here as well.

Otherwise looks good! At least an improvement on what we have now

Alistair

> +
> +- large, heavily LLM-assisted contributions where LLMs write large
> parts
> +  of functional code.  These are only allowed if *pre-arranged*,
> +  *high-quality* and *well-tested*.
> +
> +The last case (*"LLM-created contribution"*) is the one that
> requires
> +a more careful approach.  In particular:
> +
> +- "Pre-arranged" means that a maintainer has communicated ahead of
> time,
> +  for example on `IRC or the QEMU mailing
> +  list <https://www.qemu.org/contribute/>`__, that they are willing
> +  to review an LLM-created contribution.
> +
> +- "High-quality" means that the contributor must apply the same
> judgment
> +  that would be applied to other code changes.  Contributors must
> invest
> +  substantial time reviewing their contributions, curating them, and
> +  understanding them in depth; in particular, you are still expected
> to
> +  :ref:`understand and explain your changes
> +  <write_a_meaningful_commit_message>` and the rationale behind
> them.
> +
> +- "Well-tested" means the LLM-created contributions will be held to
> a
> +  higher standard than human-created ones, because LLMs make it
> easier
> +  to write tests.  There are no exceptions for "writing the tests
> seems
> +  hard" or for `yak shaving
> <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>`__.
> +
> +Commit messages for AI-assisted changes
> +'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +In order to disclose your usage of AI/LLM tools, add an ``AI-used-
> for:``
> +line before the :ref:`Signed-off-by <code-provenance>` line.  The
> trailer
> +satisfies your disclosure obligations and is also a guide to
> reviewers.  The
> +text is one or more of ``code``, ``tests``, ``docs``, ``analysis``,
> possibly
> +followed by an explanation in parentheses:
> +
> +.. code-block:: none
> +
> +     AI-used-for: tests, docs
> +     AI-used-for: code
> +     AI-used-for: code (refactoring)
> +     AI-used-for: code (prototype)
> +     AI-used-for: analysis
> +
> +``AI-used-for`` should not be included for "background" usage such
> as
> +autocomplete or obtaining a pre-review of the patch.  It can be
> included
> +however even if not required by the policy.
> +
> +There is no requirement to include your prompts or summarize the
> +conversation in the commit message or cover letter.
> +
> +QEMU does *not* use ``Assisted-by``, ``Co-authored-by`` or
> ``Generated-by``
> +trailers to indicate AI usage.  In particular, it is not necessary
> to
> +specify the exact AI model or tool used to create the commit.
> +
> +Deterministic tooling (sed, coccinelle, formatters) is out of scope
> for
> +the trailer, but should be mentioned in the commit message.
> +
> +Motivation
> +''''''''''
> +
> +There is not a consensus within the QEMU project---and likely never
> will
> +be---about when/how/where it is acceptable to use AI-based tools. 
> Many
> +members of the QEMU project and community find value in AI; many
> others
> +feel that its negative impact on society and the climate are severe
> enough
> +that no use is acceptable.  Still others are working out their
> opinion.
> +
> +In accordance with Software Freedom Conservancy's recommendations:
> +
> +- the project seeks to both support those contributors who outright
> reject
> +  generative AI systems, and to not shun those who choose to use
> them;
> +
> +- we consider QEMU's copyleft to be a viable approach to the
> unanswered
> +  legal questions about AI-generated contributions and their
> copyright
> +  status;
> +
> +- we encourage contributors not to overuse AI, and to *add* LLMs to
> +  their existing skills and tools instead of replacing them.
> +
> +A common source of grief for maintainers is the (often valid)
> impression
> +that AI enables contributions without understanding the effort they
> take
> +for those who process them.  Effectively, this shifts a major part
> of the
> +burden from the contributors to the maintainers---the scarcest
> resource
> +in any free software project, not just QEMU.  Pre-arrangement, and
> the
> +size limit for small contributions, try to avoid putting extra
> demand
> +on maintainers due to LLM-assisted work.
> +
> +
> +Sources
> +'''''''
> +
> +This policy was informed by:
> +
> +- `Recommendations When Using LLM-backed Generative AI Systems for
> +  FOSS Contributions
> <https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/llm-backed-generative-ai-recomm
> endations.html>`__
> +
> +- `Rust project LLM Usage Policy
> <https://forge.rust-lang.org/policies/llm-usage.html>`__
> +
> +- `GStreamer AGENTS.md file
> <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/blob/d08375499c
> 279/AGENTS.md>`__
> +

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Paolo Bonzini]

Thanks for the review!

On 9/2/26 03:38, Alistair Francis wrote:
>> +Prohibited use of AI
>> +''''''''''''''''''''
>> +
>> +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
>> +
>> +- cover letters and commit messages
>> +
>> +- responses to reviewer comments
>> +
>> +- issue descriptions or comments
>> +
>> +Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.
> 
> What about translations? Not everyone can write English well and I see
> translations being useful.

Difficult choice.  I can see that it's useful, but we've never been 
hardliners for English grammar, and translation may cause agent-ese to 
slip in.  I am not a native speaker but I wouldn't use this possibility, 
so I'm not the best person to decide.

That said, if somebody asked the agent for help translating, it would 
probably do it anyway.

>> - small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of
>>   code) are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple
>>   parts is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent
>>   posting of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
> 
> Maybe add something like (fell free to edit):
> 
> """
> When submitting LLM generated bug fixes the human should clearly
> describe what the bug is, how it is triggered and how it impacted them.
> The idea her is that we don't want people pointing an LLM at the source
> and generating "bug fixes" for issues that users aren't seeing. This
> can result in reviewer burnout.

I left that out because the document is already very long.  My suspicion 
is that the agent is able to infer most of it thanks to the 
"understanding" part of AGENTS.md, and reviewer burnout is covered by 
forbidding repeated posting of this kind of fix.

>> - use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test
>>   case, a parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help
>>   performing mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but
>>   disclosure is recommended.
> 
> disclosure should just be required here as well.

I think it depends in general.  Sometimes there is really just one way 
to write code in this bucket, and in that case disclosure is superfluous 
(see for example the "impl<T: ToMigrationState> ToMigrationState for 
Mutex<T>" block in rust/migration/src/migratable.rs).  The AGENTS.md 
file will cause the agent to recommend it anyway.

Paolo

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 09:09:59AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Thanks for the review!
> 
> On 9/2/26 03:38, Alistair Francis wrote:
> > > +Prohibited use of AI
> > > +''''''''''''''''''''
> > > +
> > > +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
> > > +
> > > +- cover letters and commit messages
> > > +
> > > +- responses to reviewer comments
> > > +
> > > +- issue descriptions or comments
> > > +
> > > +Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.
> > 
> > What about translations? Not everyone can write English well and I see
> > translations being useful.
> 
> Difficult choice.  I can see that it's useful, but we've never been
> hardliners for English grammar, and translation may cause agent-ese to slip
> in.

And it does! My suggestion:

- demand that contributor writes text in english.
  if someone is speaking to us through an LLM due to a complete
  lack of english .... do we really want that?

- add text in AGENTS.md along the lines of:

  When asked to fix up english syntax/grammar, DO NOT MAKE style or
  wording changes beyond correctness. Limit your text changes to solely
  fixing correctness issues or coding style violations. Also, if the
  meaning is ambiguous, do not pick a possible meaning, instead insert a
  question for the user and prompt the user to clarify.

>  I am not a native speaker but I wouldn't use this possibility, so I'm
> not the best person to decide.
> 
> That said, if somebody asked the agent for help translating, it would
> probably do it anyway.
> 
> > > - small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of
> > >   code) are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple
> > >   parts is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent
> > >   posting of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
> > 
> > Maybe add something like (fell free to edit):
> > 
> > """
> > When submitting LLM generated bug fixes the human should clearly
> > describe what the bug is, how it is triggered and how it impacted them.
> > The idea her is that we don't want people pointing an LLM at the source
> > and generating "bug fixes" for issues that users aren't seeing. This
> > can result in reviewer burnout.
> 
> I left that out because the document is already very long.  My suspicion is
> that the agent is able to infer most of it thanks to the "understanding"
> part of AGENTS.md, and reviewer burnout is covered by forbidding repeated
> posting of this kind of fix.
> 
> > > - use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test
> > >   case, a parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help
> > >   performing mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but
> > >   disclosure is recommended.
> > 
> > disclosure should just be required here as well.
> 
> I think it depends in general.  Sometimes there is really just one way to
> write code in this bucket, and in that case disclosure is superfluous (see
> for example the "impl<T: ToMigrationState> ToMigrationState for Mutex<T>"
> block in rust/migration/src/migratable.rs).  The AGENTS.md file will cause
> the agent to recommend it anyway.
> 
> Paolo

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 09:09:59AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Thanks for the review!
> 
> On 9/2/26 03:38, Alistair Francis wrote:
> > > +Prohibited use of AI
> > > +''''''''''''''''''''
> > > +
> > > +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
> > > +
> > > +- cover letters and commit messages
> > > +
> > > +- responses to reviewer comments
> > > +
> > > +- issue descriptions or comments
> > > +
> > > +Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.
> > 
> > What about translations? Not everyone can write English well and I see
> > translations being useful.
> 
> Difficult choice.  I can see that it's useful, but we've never been
> hardliners for English grammar, and translation may cause agent-ese to slip
> in.  I am not a native speaker but I wouldn't use this possibility, so I'm
> not the best person to decide.

Yep, my view is that we generally accept patches written with whatever
level of English a contributor has. Perfection is an explicit non-goal.


Having a machine (AI or not) rewrite text to "polish" the English will
always have the danger of changing the meaning/intet. For reviewers it
is valuable to see the contributors original "thinking", such that if
something is unclear/unpolished a human-to-human discussion & decision
can clarify & improve that text. 


This all, however, assumes the contributor has some basic level of
English skill. That is not a given. There are doubtless contributors
who will have heavily used automated machine translation, even before
AI, when interacting with projects.

Communication may be more challenging for both sides in this scenario,
but these contributors can still be valuable to the project so should
be accommodated. IOW, I would not want to exclude them by having a hard
rule against use of AI translation, as it can be better than pre-AI
translation tools they might have otherwise used in the past.


TL;DR: we do not want AI to be the original author of the cover letters
and commit messages. If the contributor can only author a cover letter /
commit message in their native language, however, IMHO it is acceptable
to use any translation tool to covert that to English (whether that
tool is AI based or not). We should accept the imperfection / risk
of changes in semantics here.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Peter Maydell]

On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 17:14, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Until now QEMU's code provenance policy declined any contribution
> believed to include or derive from AI-generated content.  A blanket ban
> was easy to maintain while LLM output was rarely usable on its own, but
> as the tools improved an absolute prohibition has become harder to
> justify and enforce.

Yes, but the "enforcement" part is just as hard to deal with for
any AI policy short of "we don't care whether AI was used or not
and don't care if it's labelled that way or not". A contributor
who was unaware of or chose to deliberately ignore our existing
AI policy is just as likely to be unaware of or to ignore an updated
policy that says "yes, but only with limitations and must be
pre-arranged for larger amounts of generated code". (A contributor
who deliberately ignores the policy is I hope going to be rare;
contributors who are simply unaware of it are something that we can
hopefully improve on by (a) having an AGENTS.md that will tell their
LLM about it and (b) asking in case of doubt on the maintainer side.)

I think fundamentally my issue here is that to me it doesn't seem
like the project has problems with "we aren't writing code fast
enough"; the problems are more "we don't have enough code review",
"our existing code is getting holes poked in it by automated
bug finding" and "we have too much old code that's barely used and
unmaintained". So an AI policy update whose major move is "allow
more generated code" feels bad to me, because it's inevitably
going to increase the workload on reviewers and maintainers.
I would be much happier seeing more use of AI in the project to
help us where we're struggling.

> This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious experimentation
> approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by Software
> Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative AI.

The question I had with the Rust policy was to what extent their
"experimentation" is actually going to be cautious experimentation,
and how much it turns out to be "this is a back door that lets the
people who want to write and review LLM-generated code do that anyway
as long as the people who don't want to can mostly ignore it".

If this is really experimental then we should have some clear
boundaries and criteria for our experimentation, covering for
instance
(a) when do we assess the success or failure of the experiment?
(b) what are we looking at to decide success/failure?
(c) what are our boundaries for what kinds of change we're willing
    to make under this experiment and what we are not?
(d) what is our plan for rolling back or otherwise recovering if
    the experiment seems to have failed?

The Rust policy makes some attempts at some of these e.g. with its
"circuit breaker" provision and the requirement that LLM changes are
"non-critical" ones.

> +LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +Use of generative AI tools for code contributions generally falls into
> +four buckets:
> +
> +- "background" assistance, such as completion and code review.  This does
> +  not need disclosure, however you are expected to examine and understand
> +  any code or any changes produced by the tool.
> +
> +- small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines of code)
> +  are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple parts
> +  is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent posting
> +  of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
> +
> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test case, a
> +  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help performing
> +  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but disclosure
> +  is recommended.

I guess I'm generally OK with these (though I might add an "If in doubt
about whether your use here is too extensive, ask" to the last one:
"a parser" is potentially a pretty big thing to be delegating to the LLM,
for instance, and might either be "mostly boilerplate" or to shade over
into the "writing large parts of functional code" category).

I do note that even for "small bugfixes below 10 lines of code" the
code review effort can still be pretty huge where it's touching something
like a device model, where you have to go and find the right datasheet
or spec and confirm whether the proposed change is really the right one
or if it just fixes whatever the assert/crash was but in the wrong way.
(Handwritten example from me: I tried to fix an IDE divide-by-zero
https://patchew.org/QEMU/20260630104249.2533126-1-peter.maydell@linaro.org/
and even though I had read the IDE spec and the fix is pretty small and
it does fix the bug's test case, it turns out that it's a lot more
complicated than that and the proper fix is something entirely different.)

Having a hundred "fix minor bug in old code" patches on the list that
are unreviewed isn't a lot better than having a hundred issues in the
bug tracker (indeed, it's arguably worse, since we have no tracking
system for patches on the mailing list; at least the issues won't just
get lost in the deluge...)

> +- large, heavily LLM-assisted contributions where LLMs write large parts
> +  of functional code.  These are only allowed if *pre-arranged*,
> +  *high-quality* and *well-tested*.
> +
> +The last case (*"LLM-created contribution"*) is the one that requires
> +a more careful approach.  In particular:
> +
> +- "Pre-arranged" means that a maintainer has communicated ahead of time,
> +  for example on `IRC or the QEMU mailing
> +  list <https://www.qemu.org/contribute/>`__, that they are willing
> +  to review an LLM-created contribution.
> +
> +- "High-quality" means that the contributor must apply the same judgment
> +  that would be applied to other code changes.  Contributors must invest
> +  substantial time reviewing their contributions, curating them, and
> +  understanding them in depth; in particular, you are still expected to
> +  :ref:`understand and explain your changes
> +  <write_a_meaningful_commit_message>` and the rationale behind them.
> +
> +- "Well-tested" means the LLM-created contributions will be held to a
> +  higher standard than human-created ones, because LLMs make it easier
> +  to write tests.  There are no exceptions for "writing the tests seems
> +  hard" or for `yak shaving <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>`__.

This last part is the one that I am much less certain about, and where
I'm not sure we have sufficiently bounded and defined our experiment
(as noted above).

I'm also more willing to allow leeway and to trust the judgement on
LLM use for somebody who is already a regular contributor to the
project (and so has some idea of how the codebase works and better
ability to spot when generated code has gone off in the wrong
direction), versus patches from somebody who hasn't contributed
before. Is that something we want to try to encode in policy
(e.g. with limitations on the "pre-arranged larger contribution"
case) ?

-- PMM

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Alistair Francis]

On Wed, 2026-09-02 at 13:01 +0100, Peter Maydell wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 17:14, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> > Until now QEMU's code provenance policy declined any contribution
> > believed to include or derive from AI-generated content.  A blanket
> > ban
> > was easy to maintain while LLM output was rarely usable on its own,
> > but
> > as the tools improved an absolute prohibition has become harder to
> > justify and enforce.
> 
> Yes, but the "enforcement" part is just as hard to deal with for
> any AI policy short of "we don't care whether AI was used or not
> and don't care if it's labelled that way or not". A contributor
> who was unaware of or chose to deliberately ignore our existing
> AI policy is just as likely to be unaware of or to ignore an updated
> policy that says "yes, but only with limitations and must be
> pre-arranged for larger amounts of generated code". (A contributor
> who deliberately ignores the policy is I hope going to be rare;
> contributors who are simply unaware of it are something that we can
> hopefully improve on by (a) having an AGENTS.md that will tell their
> LLM about it and (b) asking in case of doubt on the maintainer side.)

Adding an AGENTS.md is a big part of this.

I do think that it can be harder to enforce a strict policy as well.

Like with most things, a blanket ban just leads people to ignore the
ban and use AI anyway and lie about it.

If we provide some leniency then people hopefully will be more likely
to correctly declare usage and pre-arrange large patchsets. Which is a
better situation then everyone just pretending their AI code isn't AI.

> 
> I think fundamentally my issue here is that to me it doesn't seem
> like the project has problems with "we aren't writing code fast
> enough"; the problems are more "we don't have enough code review",
> "our existing code is getting holes poked in it by automated
> bug finding" and "we have too much old code that's barely used and
> unmaintained". So an AI policy update whose major move is "allow
> more generated code" feels bad to me, because it's inevitably
> going to increase the workload on reviewers and maintainers.
> I would be much happier seeing more use of AI in the project to
> help us where we're struggling.
> 
> > This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious
> > experimentation
> > approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by
> > Software
> > Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative
> > AI.
> 
> The question I had with the Rust policy was to what extent their
> "experimentation" is actually going to be cautious experimentation,
> and how much it turns out to be "this is a back door that lets the
> people who want to write and review LLM-generated code do that anyway
> as long as the people who don't want to can mostly ignore it".
> 
> If this is really experimental then we should have some clear
> boundaries and criteria for our experimentation, covering for
> instance
> (a) when do we assess the success or failure of the experiment?
> (b) what are we looking at to decide success/failure?
> (c) what are our boundaries for what kinds of change we're willing
>     to make under this experiment and what we are not?
> (d) what is our plan for rolling back or otherwise recovering if
>     the experiment seems to have failed?
> 
> The Rust policy makes some attempts at some of these e.g. with its
> "circuit breaker" provision and the requirement that LLM changes are
> "non-critical" ones.
> 
> > +LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
> > +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> > +
> > +Use of generative AI tools for code contributions generally falls
> > into
> > +four buckets:
> > +
> > +- "background" assistance, such as completion and code review. 
> > This does
> > +  not need disclosure, however you are expected to examine and
> > understand
> > +  any code or any changes produced by the tool.
> > +
> > +- small LLM-assisted bugfixes (as a rule of thumb, below 10 lines
> > of code)
> > +  are allowed with disclosure.  Splitting a submission in multiple
> > parts
> > +  is **not** a valid way to bypass this rule; repeated, frequent
> > posting
> > +  of such fixes must follow the rule for full contributions.
> > +
> > +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test
> > case, a
> > +  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help
> > performing
> > +  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but
> > disclosure
> > +  is recommended.
> 
> I guess I'm generally OK with these (though I might add an "If in
> doubt
> about whether your use here is too extensive, ask" to the last one:
> "a parser" is potentially a pretty big thing to be delegating to the
> LLM,
> for instance, and might either be "mostly boilerplate" or to shade
> over
> into the "writing large parts of functional code" category).
> 
> I do note that even for "small bugfixes below 10 lines of code" the
> code review effort can still be pretty huge where it's touching
> something
> like a device model, where you have to go and find the right
> datasheet
> or spec and confirm whether the proposed change is really the right
> one
> or if it just fixes whatever the assert/crash was but in the wrong
> way.
> (Handwritten example from me: I tried to fix an IDE divide-by-zero
> https://patchew.org/QEMU/20260630104249.2533126-1-peter.maydell@linaro.org/
> and even though I had read the IDE spec and the fix is pretty small
> and
> it does fix the bug's test case, it turns out that it's a lot more
> complicated than that and the proper fix is something entirely
> different.)
> 
> Having a hundred "fix minor bug in old code" patches on the list that
> are unreviewed isn't a lot better than having a hundred issues in the
> bug tracker (indeed, it's arguably worse, since we have no tracking
> system for patches on the mailing list; at least the issues won't
> just
> get lost in the deluge...)
> 
> > +- large, heavily LLM-assisted contributions where LLMs write large
> > parts
> > +  of functional code.  These are only allowed if *pre-arranged*,
> > +  *high-quality* and *well-tested*.
> > +
> > +The last case (*"LLM-created contribution"*) is the one that
> > requires
> > +a more careful approach.  In particular:
> > +
> > +- "Pre-arranged" means that a maintainer has communicated ahead of
> > time,
> > +  for example on `IRC or the QEMU mailing
> > +  list <https://www.qemu.org/contribute/>`__, that they are
> > willing
> > +  to review an LLM-created contribution.
> > +
> > +- "High-quality" means that the contributor must apply the same
> > judgment
> > +  that would be applied to other code changes.  Contributors must
> > invest
> > +  substantial time reviewing their contributions, curating them,
> > and
> > +  understanding them in depth; in particular, you are still
> > expected to
> > +  :ref:`understand and explain your changes
> > +  <write_a_meaningful_commit_message>` and the rationale behind
> > them.
> > +
> > +- "Well-tested" means the LLM-created contributions will be held
> > to a
> > +  higher standard than human-created ones, because LLMs make it
> > easier
> > +  to write tests.  There are no exceptions for "writing the tests
> > seems
> > +  hard" or for `yak shaving
> > <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>`__.
> 
> This last part is the one that I am much less certain about, and
> where
> I'm not sure we have sufficiently bounded and defined our experiment
> (as noted above).

This is already happening today though. At least hopefully this prods
people to declare it is

> 
> I'm also more willing to allow leeway and to trust the judgement on
> LLM use for somebody who is already a regular contributor to the
> project (and so has some idea of how the codebase works and better
> ability to spot when generated code has gone off in the wrong
> direction), versus patches from somebody who hasn't contributed
> before. Is that something we want to try to encode in policy
> (e.g. with limitations on the "pre-arranged larger contribution"
> case) ?

That's the case for all submissions though, I think that's just how
things work

Alistair

> 
> -- PMM

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 9/2/26 14:01, Peter Maydell wrote:
> A contributor
> who was unaware of or chose to deliberately ignore our existing
> AI policy is just as likely to be unaware of or to ignore an updated
> policy that says "yes, but only with limitations and must be
> pre-arranged for larger amounts of generated code".

Oh, they won't be unaware of it. :)  That's why I included the 
AGENTS.md, even though it's technically separate.  They'll be reminded 
every two minutes of the need to pre-arrange review, until they tell the 
LLM to shut up.

> (A contributor who deliberately ignores the policy is I hope going to
> be rare; contributors who are simply unaware of it are something that
> we can hopefully improve on by (a) having an AGENTS.md that will tell
> their LLM about it and (b) asking in case of doubt on the maintainer
> side.)

Exactly.  Also, we have contributors who are unware of it now and we 
live with it or look at it on a case-by-case basis.  People ignoring the 
policy will be the same.

> I think fundamentally my issue here is that to me it doesn't seem
> like the project has problems with "we aren't writing code fast
> enough"; the problems are more "we don't have enough code review",
> "our existing code is getting holes poked in it by automated
> bug finding" and "we have too much old code that's barely used and
> unmaintained". So an AI policy update whose major move is "allow
> more generated code" feels bad to me, because it's inevitably
> going to increase the workload on reviewers and maintainers.
> I would be much happier seeing more use of AI in the project to
> help us where we're struggling.

I agree.  The hope is to get a bit of that via better testing, and that 
"we aren't writing code fast enough" is applied to stuff that helps long 
term rather than to the itch of the day.  Whether it works or not it 
remains to be seen.

I certainly don't want an explosion of new device models and 
unreviewable qtests.

> The question I had with the Rust policy was to what extent their
> "experimentation" is actually going to be cautious experimentation,
> and how much it turns out to be "this is a back door that lets the
> people who want to write and review LLM-generated code do that anyway
> as long as the people who don't want to can mostly ignore it".
> 
> If this is really experimental then we should have some clear
> boundaries and criteria for our experimentation, covering for
> instance
> (a) when do we assess the success or failure of the experiment?
> (b) what are we looking at to decide success/failure?
> (c) what are our boundaries for what kinds of change we're willing
>      to make under this experiment and what we are not?
> (d) what is our plan for rolling back or otherwise recovering if
>      the experiment seems to have failed?

I agree these are good questions.  They don't have obvious answers but 
as a start:

(a) a year was more or less the distance between the old policy and the 
time when we started noticing AI work on the mailing list, so probably 
another 8-12 months?  Such as from November's QEMU Summit to the one in 
Sep-Nov 2027?

(b) Having to abort the experiment in advance is the obvious failure 
mode.  Everything goes unnoticed is success.  I would say that pervasive 
discussions on boundaries would be pretty bad too.  Success/failure may 
also be split across categories, say by forbidding the bugfix category.

(c) no idea.  The concept of pre-arrangement leaves this to individual 
maintainers.  As Daniel points out "different rules for different 
subsystems" is not a good thing in principle, but in the end there is 
already a large subjective element in what maintainers are willing to 
review and even from whom.

(d) worst case we could simply revert the policy, at least in effects 
though probably not in language.

I'll add (e) what are our boundaries for AI patches covering multiple 
maintainers?  The extreme case is Alex's "make QOM parenting mandatory" 
series 
(https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/20260718213652.37673-1-graf@amazon.com/), 
but it's actually not the hardest---apart from being done with AI, we 
had similarly large changes in the past such as the Meson switch and 
qdev_new() refactoring.  In those cases a pre-arrangement was needed 
anyway with the community, more than with a specific sets of maintainers.

> The Rust policy makes some attempts at some of these e.g. with its
> "circuit breaker" provision and the requirement that LLM changes are
> "non-critical" ones.

I didn't include a "circuit breaker" because someone would have to 
implement it, but also because I don't expect any maintainer to be so 
eager as to flood QEMU with AI-generated work.  And we're a much smaller 
community so I hope we would be able to sort it out among ourselves.

>> +LLM-assisted and LLM-created contributions
>> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>> +
>> +Use of generative AI tools for code contributions generally falls into
>> +four buckets:
>> +
>> +- "background" assistance
>> +- small LLM-assisted bugfixes
>> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch
> 
> I guess I'm generally OK with these (though I might add an "If in doubt
> about whether your use here is too extensive, ask" to the last one:
> "a parser" is potentially a pretty big thing to be delegating to the LLM,
> for instance, and might either be "mostly boilerplate" or to shade over
> into the "writing large parts of functional code" category).

Sure I can remove the parser example.  The initial one I had was 
"switching to a new API".  That is more representative of the intent it 
would basically put Alex's 137 patch series almost entirely under this 
section and I didn't want to do that.

I can report that the LLM was very reluctant to let me use this third 
category, and even less to let me do it without "AI-used-for".  Even for 
a one-line change to a "#define" in a 1000-line patch, it insisted that 
perhaps I should have included the trailer.  The AGENTS.md makes it very 
meticulous. :)

> I do note that even for "small bugfixes below 10 lines of code" the
> code review effort can still be pretty huge where it's touching something
> like a device model, where you have to go and find the right datasheet
> or spec and confirm whether the proposed change is really the right one
> or if it just fixes whatever the assert/crash was but in the wrong way.
> [...] Having a hundred "fix minor bug in old code" patches on the list that
> are unreviewed isn't a lot better than having a hundred issues in the
> bug tracker (indeed, it's arguably worse, since we have no tracking
> system for patches on the mailing list; at least the issues won't just
> get lost in the deluge...)

Yes, and especially when we have them submitted to "Odd fixes" areas the 
risk of maintainer DDOS is there.  But if people start submitting too 
much you *can* tell them according to the policy that you need them to 
develop e.g. a test suite.  Which yes, will *also* be more work to 
review for maintainers, but probably something that was sorely needed.

The hope is that by not placing AI-generated code in a "don't ask, don't 
tell" area we actually have tools to push back and reach an equilibrium 
that is better for the project and for the maintainers.  How it will 
work, it remains to be seen.

> I'm also more willing to allow leeway and to trust the judgement on
> LLM use for somebody who is already a regular contributor to the
> project (and so has some idea of how the codebase works and better
> ability to spot when generated code has gone off in the wrong
> direction), versus patches from somebody who hasn't contributed
> before. Is that something we want to try to encode in policy
> (e.g. with limitations on the "pre-arranged larger contribution"
> case) ?
Pre-arrangement does not mean you're forced to say yes.  Saying "I've 
never done this and I don't want to give you false hopes, so I'll 
decline" is fine.

Paolo

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:19PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On top of this, several maintainers have pointed out that contributions
> that can be reasonably suspected to be AI-assisted or more have been
> posted and included.

I tend to view this problem as a consequence of our failure to provide
an AGENTS.md file describing our policy, rather than fully attributed
to the policy itself being wrong.  We were naive in thinking that a
page buried in our docs was sufficient to make people & and agents
aware of our policy.

>                        Some of these contributions are actually of very
> high quality; it seems that the mailing list-based contribution process
> has mostly protected QEMU from low quality patches.  A prohibition on
> AI puts maintainers in a difficult position: on one hand the DCO process
> lets them rely on the submitter's certification of origin, on the other
> hand maintainers are supposed to know and implement the process policies.

One area I've felt is awkward with the AI policy (vs other policies
maintainers enforce) is that when maintainers raise the question of AI
usage, we're effectively critiquing the actions & behaviour of the
contributor during development, rather than critiquing the content of
submission itself.

It leads us to be distrustful of contributors, and is a dynamic that
risks becoming quite unpleasant for all involved.

It was/is less difficult when AI generated code was clearly slop as
we knew the answer to "was this done by AI" was "yes" ahead of time.
When code submissions are higher quality, the answer to "was this
done by AI" is a game of roulette and will come across badly.

We need to strivee to keep maintainers out of the policing job, 
avoiding the need to actively question the behaviour of contributors
and get back to focusing on the content. The introduction of AGENTS.md
file is definitely key and fixes the failing of our existing policy
implementation.

> Since the policy has been written, other projects have discussed and
> taken their stance on AI contributions.  These vary from full prohibition
> (though typically motivated by social reasons rather than legal, e.g.
> for Zig) to limited use (e.g. GCC, allowing small contributions and
> tests to use AI), to cautious experimentation.
> 
> This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious experimentation
> approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by Software
> Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative AI.

IMHO the "cautious experimentation" phrasing is effectively
marketing words for a policy that is "AI for anything".

The main distinguishing feature there is that we're asking
contributors not to drown us in AI generated code without
prior discussion.


The "limited use" scenario from GCC is meaningfully different
as it is attempting to limit the legal liability by restricting
the scope of work to things that are unlikely to meet the
threshold for copyright / licensing / legal concerns.

> Conservancy in particular provides this point to alleviate the concern
> that motivated the policy, about whether the submitter has the legal
> right to contribute the code and about unintentional reproduction of
> copyrighted code:
> 
>    "Copyleft Everything" remains the best viable and safest approach
>    Certainly those who want to release FOSS under non-copyleft licenses
>    have more to worry about when using these tools.

I'm trying to understand the rationale behind that statement,
and found that part of their recommendations very weak.

My best interpretation is that it is trying to give reassurance
that if the AI output were to be deemed a derived work of part
of the training material, then projects are safer if they are
Copyleft.

At a simplistic level if the training material were a mix of only
GPLv2 and BSD code, then if an agent contributed to a GPLv2 project
then it is ok even if deemed a derived work, but not OK if the
agent contributed to a BSD project.

That rationalization only works if the set of training material
licenses forms a linear progression of restrictions with copyleft
(GPL) at one end. The real training materials is such a jumble
of licenses that there's no "root" and there are a huge set of
copyleft variants.

Even the GPL has plain GPL vs LGPL vs AGPL, and v2-only vs
v2-or-later vs v3-only. Even before the days of AI this was
a compliance minefield when sharing code between projects
under different variants, and QEMU has long suffered the
GPL-v2-only restriction from some of our pieces and the
complexity it adds when refactoring & keeping track of
code licenses.

> Therefore, the revised policy considers QEMU's copyleft to be a viable
> approach to any unanswered legal questions about AI-generated
> contributions and their copyright status.

Copyleft is desirable for very many reasons, but I'm struggling
to see that recommendations eliminates any legal questions about
AI contributions, as compared to other licenses.


> In that respect, the Rust project's policy combines two unusual ideas.
> One is to hold them to a higher standard, in the spirit of using AI to
> work "better, not faster"; the other is to require "pre-arrangement" for
> "changes that are originally created by an LLM".  AI lowers the cost of
> producing a patch but does nothing to lower the cost of understanding
> and reviewing one; if anything it raises it, since a reviewer can
> no longer assume that the submitter has reasoned through every line.
> Pre-arrangement is an attempt to balance the shift of effort from the
> developer to the maintainer, and the QEMU policy includes the same
> provision.

My concern with "pre-arrangement" is how we end up applying the
rule in practice and whether the community dynamics that result
from that are positive or negative ?

My own historical experiences with communities or processes where
contributions requires pre-arrangement or scheduling were really
quite negative. It frequently kills opportunistic or spontaneous
work, and can result in a closed club which is hard to newcomers
to break into.

At the same time, QEMU has a long standing capacity problem
before AI arrived, which leads to frequent disappointment with
contributions languishing without review. The various schduling
efforts some projects have adopted are an effort to give
contributors some predictability, like they would have in a
traditional closed source, top down managed software project.
That just doesn't feel like the typical spirit of OSS to me.


I also conceptually dislike a policy which will lead to a situation
where different rules will apply to different subsystems, depending
on the preferences of individual maintainers. Work is also not
always  easily contained to subsystems, prerequisite refactoring
can quickly spread it tentacles out.

Consider hypothetically a net subsystem maintainer agrees to
use of AI for generating a large piece of code, and something in
that work requires a change to QOM or QDev or QAPI. This quickly
ends up exposing multiple other maintainers to TODO items from
the AI generated contribution. 

So again, IMHO, "cautious experimentation" with "pre-arrangement"
is effectively "AI for anything" and all maintainers exposed to
varying levels, but contributors need to get into a club first.

> Revise the policy according to the above considerations, and introduce the
> "AI-used-for:" trailer as a record of where AI was used.  The standard is
> slightly different from the more usual "Assisted-by"; the intention is for
> the metadata to provide more information for reviewers to judge the result.
> 
> In any case, use of AI does not relax any other contribution requirement:
> authors still comply with the DCO and take responsibility for the whole
> patch via Signed-off-by.

When agents output are involved the DCO just rubber stamp exercise,
as there's no practical way any contributor can understand whether
there are legal concerns with the code the agent spat out unless it
is so short as to not meet the threshold for copyright.

If that is going to be our interpretation of the DCO lets be explicit
about that, rather than pretending it is a meaningful statement for
the AI authored components.

> +Risks to open source projects include maintainer burnout from an
> +increased number of contributions, as well as the risk to the project
> +from unintentional inclusion of copyrighted material in the LLM's output.
> +In order to mitigate these risks, the QEMU project limits the way
> +in which use of the output of generative AI can be included
> +in contributions to QEMU.

I don't think the policy is mitigating the legal risk. Rather it
is accepting that few people seem to care about the legal risks
anymore, in favour of supposed "efficiency" wins.

Practically this is just trying to limit who can use AI, by
requiring them to ask permission first.

> +Prohibited use of AI
> +''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:

This is enumerating three concrete examples, of a more
general concept of "The QEMU community is a collaboration
between humans".  IOW, we don't want AITM (AI In The Middle)
for our communications. Can we say this explicitly

"The QEMU community is a collaboration between humans
 and thus communications must NOT be directed through
 an AI agents facade. This implies that the following
 items MUST be written by humans:"

> +
> +- cover letters and commit messages
> +
> +- responses to reviewer comments
> +
> +- issue descriptions or comments
> +
> +Light copy editing of human-written text with an AI is allowed.
> +
> +Repeated violations of this rule may be treated as a :ref:`code_of_conduct`
> +violation.
> +
> +An exception is made for issues for defects detected by specialized
> +tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection. Such issues
> +must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by a human
> +and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but including
> +the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly allowed.

This exception is likely inescapable, but it is also effectively a
backdoor that exposes all maintainers to AI output in their INBOX.

The requirement for "human verifications" may mitigate the worst
excesses, but the limitations of that rule are very apparent when
reading the AI assisted bug reports. The contributor may have done
a sanity-check but you're still wading through reports many pages
long, and especially the generated qtests can rarely be explained
by the contributors.

> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test case, a
> +  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help performing
> +  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but disclosure
> +  is recommended.

I don't think disclosure should be optional here, most especially for
tests cases it needs to be mandatory IMHO.


> +Commit messages for AI-assisted changes
> +'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
> +
> +In order to disclose your usage of AI/LLM tools, add an ``AI-used-for:``
> +line before the :ref:`Signed-off-by <code-provenance>` line.  The trailer
> +satisfies your disclosure obligations and is also a guide to reviewers.  The
> +text is one or more of ``code``, ``tests``, ``docs``, ``analysis``, possibly
> +followed by an explanation in parentheses:
> +
> +.. code-block:: none
> +
> +     AI-used-for: tests, docs
> +     AI-used-for: code
> +     AI-used-for: code (refactoring)
> +     AI-used-for: code (prototype)
> +     AI-used-for: analysis
> +
> +``AI-used-for`` should not be included for "background" usage such as
> +autocomplete or obtaining a pre-review of the patch.  It can be included
> +however even if not required by the policy.
> +
> +There is no requirement to include your prompts or summarize the
> +conversation in the commit message or cover letter.

I would be stronger and say we explicitly do NOT want the prompts
or conversation history. If there was info in the prompts that is
relevant to the reviewer, then include that info as natural language
in the commit message, not a cut+paste of the prompts.

> +QEMU does *not* use ``Assisted-by``, ``Co-authored-by`` or ``Generated-by``
> +trailers to indicate AI usage.  In particular, it is not necessary to
> +specify the exact AI model or tool used to create the commit.

This says they're not required, but also doesn't forbid them,
which leaves rather a gray zone. If we don't want to require
them (which I think is correct, as this is just free advertizing
for largely commercial tools), then IMHO its preferable to make
checkpatch.pl explicitly reject them.

> +There is not a consensus within the QEMU project---and likely never will
> +be---about when/how/where it is acceptable to use AI-based tools.  Many
> +members of the QEMU project and community find value in AI; many others
> +feel that its negative impact on society and the climate are severe enough
> +that no use is acceptable.  Still others are working out their opinion.
> +
> +In accordance with Software Freedom Conservancy's recommendations:
> +
> +- the project seeks to both support those contributors who outright reject
> +  generative AI systems, and to not shun those who choose to use them;
> +
> +- we consider QEMU's copyleft to be a viable approach to the unanswered
> +  legal questions about AI-generated contributions and their copyright
> +  status;

This (and SFC's recommendations) comes across as trying to
square-the-circle.

Effectively the policy is saying that we have no choice but to accept
them, despite reservations people might have (legal or social or
environmental), as they've become too commonplace in the industry to
decline.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 1/4] docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 9/2/26 18:09, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:19PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> On top of this, several maintainers have pointed out that contributions
>> that can be reasonably suspected to be AI-assisted or more have been
>> posted and included.
> 
> I tend to view this problem as a consequence of our failure to provide
> an AGENTS.md file describing our policy, rather than fully attributed
> to the policy itself being wrong.  We were naive in thinking that a
> page buried in our docs was sufficient to make people & and agents
> aware of our policy.

It is also giving a measure of what people find AI to be useful for, in 
the context of QEMU.  Certainly an underestimation of how much they 
would use it if the policy was changed, but it's something.

>> Since the policy has been written, other projects have discussed and
>> taken their stance on AI contributions.  These vary from full prohibition
>> (though typically motivated by social reasons rather than legal, e.g.
>> for Zig) to limited use (e.g. GCC, allowing small contributions and
>> tests to use AI), to cautious experimentation.
>>
>> This proposed policy seeks to implement the cautious experimentation
>> approach, inspired mostly by the Rust project's policy and by Software
>> Freedom Conservancy's own recommendations on LLMs and generative AI.
> 
> IMHO the "cautious experimentation" phrasing is effectively
> marketing words for a policy that is "AI for anything".

I don't think it is.  Any policy builds on trust of the maintainers, and 
we know the community is not going to vibe code a rewrite of QEMU in Rust.

There are multiple axes, and this policy+AGENTS.md combo is not the most 
liberal on any axis.  For example GStreamer has a stricter AGENTS.md but 
basically no policy; that's more "AI for anything" than this proposal is.

Yes, it's intentionally leaving out any legal risks unlike the GCC 
policy.  I'm trusting Conservancy on that - they do not just have 
lawyers, they are in some sense "our" lawyers and I don't think they 
wrote their recommendations lightly.

> The "limited use" scenario from GCC is meaningfully different
> as it is attempting to limit the legal liability by restricting
> the scope of work to things that are unlikely to meet the
> threshold for copyright / licensing / legal concerns.

>> Conservancy in particular provides this point to alleviate the concern
>> that motivated the policy, about whether the submitter has the legal
>> right to contribute the code and about unintentional reproduction of
>> copyrighted code:
>>
>>     "Copyleft Everything" remains the best viable and safest approach
>>     Certainly those who want to release FOSS under non-copyleft licenses
>>     have more to worry about when using these tools.
> 
> My best interpretation is that it is trying to give reassurance
> that if the AI output were to be deemed a derived work of part
> of the training material, then projects are safer if they are
> Copyleft. [...]
> 
> That rationalization only works if the set of training material
> licenses forms a linear progression of restrictions with copyleft
> (GPL) at one end. The real training materials is such a jumble
> of licenses that there's no "root" and there are a huge set of
> copyleft variants. [...] Even the GPL has plain GPL vs LGPL vs
> AGPL, and v2-only vs v2-or-later vs v3-only. Even before the
> days of AI this was a compliance minefield

"Most viable and safest" is certainly not a 100% guarantee.  IANAL but 
what you want is the legal equivalent of the swiss cheese model where 
copyleft is only one of several mitigating factors.  These include the 
fact that there are a lot of QEMU forks in training materials, as you 
pointed out when discussing mechanical changes; the AGENTS.md 
instructions to involve the user in the design; "de minimis" and fair 
use exceptions (you probably don't want to get there but they exist); 
and so on.

> My concern with "pre-arrangement" is how we end up applying the
> rule in practice and whether the community dynamics that result
> from that are positive or negative ?
> 
> My own historical experiences with communities or processes where
> contributions requires pre-arrangement or scheduling were really
> quite negative. It frequently kills opportunistic or spontaneous
> work, and can result in a closed club which is hard to newcomers
> to break into.

I don't think putting pre-arrangement in an AI policy is saying anything 
new, it only makes it explicit in the area of highest risk.

Personal example: I did feel bad for including *my* implementation of 
AVX over the previous two, just because my employer didn't need one at a 
time and the review effort would have been massive (higher than writing 
my own when Red Hat did want one).

Pre-arrangement would have helped, and *now* I could say "hey, ask the 
AI to sketch a new x86 decoder with this and this characteristic, and 
let's see where that takes us".

Now *I* wouldn't use AI today to rewrite the x86 decoder either, but 
pre-arrangement can change not just the balance but also the dynamic 
between maintainer and contributor.  Maintainers have *a lot* more power 
to ask for changes if the effort to do them is comparably lower. 
Ideally that filters for AI users that are curious and interested in 
learning the underlying choices.

Of course, maybe I am wrong.

> I also conceptually dislike a policy which will lead to a situation
> where different rules will apply to different subsystems, depending
> on the preferences of individual maintainers. Work is also not
> always easily contained to subsystems, prerequisite refactoring
> can quickly spread it tentacles out.
> 
> Consider hypothetically a net subsystem maintainer agrees to
> use of AI for generating a large piece of code, and something in
> that work requires a change to QOM or QDev or QAPI. This quickly
> ends up exposing multiple other maintainers to TODO items from
> the AI generated contribution.

Indeed, it's not hypothetical even - see my reply to Peter about Alex's 
qdev/QOM refactoring.  But those large cases have *already* been done 
with pre-arrangement and one maintainer vouching for them, so we have a 
precedent.

> So again, IMHO, "cautious experimentation" with "pre-arrangement"
> is effectively "AI for anything" and all maintainers exposed to
> varying levels, but contributors need to get into a club first.

It's a possible outcome, it's not the only one though (or if it is, the 
club already exists and does not even include all maintainers---which is 
a problem in and of itself).

>> In any case, use of AI does not relax any other contribution requirement:
>> authors still comply with the DCO and take responsibility for the whole
>> patch via Signed-off-by.
> 
> When agents output are involved the DCO just rubber stamp exercise,
> as there's no practical way any contributor can understand whether
> there are legal concerns with the code the agent spat out unless it
> is so short as to not meet the threshold for copyright.

It still acknowledges the fact that, for example, the person's employer 
does not forbid him for contributing to QEMU.  And while it's weaker, 
AI-user-for + Signed-off-by protects QEMU more than "don't ask, don't tell".

[I won't rehash the same arguments below; I understand why you made them 
in the context of both the cover letter and the actual text]

>> +The following items **MUST** be written by humans:
> 
> This is enumerating three concrete examples, of a more
> general concept of "The QEMU community is a collaboration
> between humans".  IOW, we don't want AITM (AI In The Middle)
> for our communications. Can we say this explicitly
> 
> "The QEMU community is a collaboration between humans
>   and thus communications must NOT be directed through
>   an AI agents facade. This implies that the following
>   items MUST be written by humans:"

Sure.

>> +- use of LLMs to help generating parts of a larger patch---a test case, a
>> +  parser, boilerplate code for a new API, a tool to help performing
>> +  mechanical changes, etc. These are generally allowed, but disclosure
>> +  is recommended.
> 
> I don't think disclosure should be optional here, most especially for
> tests cases it needs to be mandatory IMHO.

What about "disclosure is highly recommended for non-trivial, functional 
code"?  The idea here was to avoid lowering the AI-used-for SNR and avoid

AI-used-for: code (turning CSV data into an array)

>> +There is no requirement to include your prompts or summarize the
>> +conversation in the commit message or cover letter.
> 
> I would be stronger and say we explicitly do NOT want the prompts
> or conversation history. If there was info in the prompts that is
> relevant to the reviewer, then include that info as natural language
> in the commit message, not a cut+paste of the prompts.
> 
>> +QEMU does *not* use ``Assisted-by``, ``Co-authored-by`` or ``Generated-by``
>> +trailers to indicate AI usage.  In particular, it is not necessary to
>> +specify the exact AI model or tool used to create the commit.
> 
> This says they're not required, but also doesn't forbid them,
> which leaves rather a gray zone. If we don't want to require
> them (which I think is correct, as this is just free advertizing
> for largely commercial tools), then IMHO its preferable to make
> checkpatch.pl explicitly reject them.

Sure.

> This (and SFC's recommendations) comes across as trying to
> square-the-circle.
> 
> Effectively the policy is saying that we have no choice but to accept
> them, despite reservations people might have (legal or social or
> environmental), as they've become too commonplace in the industry to
> decline.
I think this is a bit oversimplifying, but I can't deny that there's a 
kernel of truth in there.

Paolo

[PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Paolo Bonzini]

Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
do seems to yield better results.

This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
contributions we've received.

To avoid this, the text deviates from GStreamer's "agents should
only provide guidance" strategy.  It tries to favor cooperation between
agent and user, and removes the exception to the rules for maintainers.

To test it I tried the following prompt:

  Hi, i am doing my first AI assisted contribution to QEMU. i am familiar
  with the project, but would nevertheless like to experiment. please
  generate a sample implementation of a pressure sensor, of any model,
  of a kind that is commonly used with Arduino or ESP32 microcontrollers.

The agent did read llm-usage.rst and after doing the work (implementing
a BMP280 pressure/temperature sensor) it noticed:

  Policy, before this goes anywhere near the list. A new device model plus
  qtest is the fourth bucket in docs/devel/llm-usage.rst: large, heavily
  LLM-assisted, allowed only if pre-arranged — a maintainer has to say on
  IRC or the list beforehand that they'll review it. hw/sensor is Philippe
  Mathieu-Daudé (Odd Fixes), with Corey Minyard on I2C. I should have
  flagged this before writing rather than after; that's on me. Disclosure
  would be AI-used-for: code, tests above your Signed-off-by, and the
  commit message and any list replies have to be yours, not edited from mine.

I then asked "Can you provide a draft of the commit message with all the
sources (datasheet, etc.)?" The agent complied but noticed:

  AGENTS.md and docs/devel/llm-usage.rst state that commit messages MUST
  be written by humans — an AI-drafted one must not reach the list
  even lightly edited. So treat the below as scaffolding for facts and
  sources, and write the final text yourself.

After some editing I asked "ok, will you please commit for me?" and
it did so with basically my text, while also reminding me about the need
for maintainer pre-arrangement.

I asked "assuming pre-arrangement is this ok according to the policy?"
and this was the assessment:

  "Well-tested" — held to a higher standard, and here's what's actually
  missing: [...] the vmstate (no migration test), reading past 0xFC and
  reserved registers, the pointer_valid error path, oversampling/filter
  fields beyond one readback, and behavior against a real driver — Linux
  bmp280 was never run against this. None of those is hard; whether the
  current set clears the higher bar is a judgment call I'd rather hand
  you than make.

  "High-quality" is the open one. The doc asks that you have reviewed and
  curated the contribution and can explain the changes and the rationale
  in depth. In this session you engaged with the commit message and the
  sources — and caught my datasheet error, which I got wrong — but the
  design decisions were mine and unexamined by you [...]

Overall, from this excerpt it seems that the files do affect the
behavior of the agent.  The agent however made too many design
decisions on its own.  This will be fixed in a separate step.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
---
 AGENTS.md | 100 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 100 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 AGENTS.md

diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
+
+QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
+of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
+project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
+is **a scarce resource**.
+
+There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
+project.
+
+## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
+
+The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
+reach the maintainers.
+
+### No automated posting
+
+- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
+  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
+  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
+  - Post **comments** on merge requests, issues or commits
+  - Open or update **merge requests (MRs)**.  QEMU does not use merge requests anyway.
+
+### No AI-written text must reach maintainers
+
+These rules apply when publishing AI-assisted work to GitLab or the mailing list:
+
+- **AI-written cover letters and commit messages are banned**.  These are
+  easy to recognize and waste reviewers' time.
+- **AI-generated responses to reviewer comments are banned**. This undermines
+  the human-to-human interaction fundamental to code review.
+- **AI-written issue ("work item") descriptions or comments are banned**. These
+  are verbose and waste triagers' time.
+  - An exception is made for issues for defects detected by specialized
+    tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection. Such issues
+    must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by a human
+    and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but including
+    the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly allowed.
+
+Copy editing of human-written text, for example to help non-native speakers,
+is allowed. Keep such edits precise and concise.
+
+## Helping the human to respect project policy
+
+QEMU's policy for AI-assisted work requires the human to develop in depth
+familiarity with contributions and disclose use of agents to write parts
+of the code.
+
+### Human must demonstrate understanding
+
+Staying familiar with what's going on requires constant effort on part of
+the human; track their comprehension of the problem and of the relevant parts
+of the codebase. Expect manual intervention before a change is ready to
+post, for example:
+
+- pushing back on a specific part of your design or implementation, or
+  asking to explain tradeoffs
+- manual splitting or reordering of commits
+- suggesting other places that need to be adjusted for consistency
+- preferring reworded commit messages to lightly edited AI-generated ones
+
+In order to protect the project's scarcest resource, which is review time:
+
+- You should **facilitate this process** by offering alternatives instead of
+  hard answers when applicable.
+- You must **tell humans about these expectations** at handover.  Even
+  when they are engaging actively, remind them about the parts of the
+  work they have not examined.
+
+### AI usage must be disclosed and/or pre-arranged
+
+Contributions produced with your help are disclosed with an `AI-used-for:`
+trailer before `Signed-off-by`.  Humans are expected to exercise their
+own judgment on which AI usage needs disclosure, but you are allowed to
+remind them of the need for it.
+
+Contributions where you write large parts of the functional code are only
+allowed if a maintainer has agreed **beforehand** to review them.  Tell the
+human about this as soon as the work looks like it will grow to that size,
+not once the patches are written.
+
+The `docs/devel/llm-usage.rst` file defines the format of the disclosure
+trailer and the rules for large AI-assisted work; read it before
+helping with a contribution.
+
+## Final instructions
+
+- You and the human must **tread carefully** when participating in the project.
+  If the human moves faster than their understanding, slow down and explain.
+- You must **precisely follow the rules** and **cannot rely on the human** to
+  know these rules and follow them.
+- You must **inform the human**, and if forced, **MUST ALSO refuse commands**
+  that break these rules.
+
+In case of contradiction consider `AGENTS.md` authoritative on how to behave,
+since it is crafted specifically for agents.
+
+The project maintainers reserve the right to penalize humans for breaking these
+rules in any way deemed appropriate, including but not limited to **PERMANENTLY
+BANNING** the human from participation in the project.
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Alistair Francis]

On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around
> this,
> even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> do seems to yield better results.
> 
> This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its
> commit
> d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign
> of
> going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> contributions we've received.
> 
> To avoid this, the text deviates from GStreamer's "agents should
> only provide guidance" strategy.  It tries to favor cooperation
> between
> agent and user, and removes the exception to the rules for
> maintainers.
> 
> To test it I tried the following prompt:
> 
>   Hi, i am doing my first AI assisted contribution to QEMU. i am
> familiar
>   with the project, but would nevertheless like to experiment. please
>   generate a sample implementation of a pressure sensor, of any
> model,
>   of a kind that is commonly used with Arduino or ESP32
> microcontrollers.
> 
> The agent did read llm-usage.rst and after doing the work
> (implementing
> a BMP280 pressure/temperature sensor) it noticed:
> 
>   Policy, before this goes anywhere near the list. A new device model
> plus
>   qtest is the fourth bucket in docs/devel/llm-usage.rst: large,
> heavily
>   LLM-assisted, allowed only if pre-arranged — a maintainer has to
> say on
>   IRC or the list beforehand that they'll review it. hw/sensor is
> Philippe
>   Mathieu-Daudé (Odd Fixes), with Corey Minyard on I2C. I should have
>   flagged this before writing rather than after; that's on me.
> Disclosure
>   would be AI-used-for: code, tests above your Signed-off-by, and the
>   commit message and any list replies have to be yours, not edited
> from mine.
> 
> I then asked "Can you provide a draft of the commit message with all
> the
> sources (datasheet, etc.)?" The agent complied but noticed:
> 
>   AGENTS.md and docs/devel/llm-usage.rst state that commit messages
> MUST
>   be written by humans — an AI-drafted one must not reach the list
>   even lightly edited. So treat the below as scaffolding for facts
> and
>   sources, and write the final text yourself.
> 
> After some editing I asked "ok, will you please commit for me?" and
> it did so with basically my text, while also reminding me about the
> need
> for maintainer pre-arrangement.
> 
> I asked "assuming pre-arrangement is this ok according to the
> policy?"
> and this was the assessment:
> 
>   "Well-tested" — held to a higher standard, and here's what's
> actually
>   missing: [...] the vmstate (no migration test), reading past 0xFC
> and
>   reserved registers, the pointer_valid error path,
> oversampling/filter
>   fields beyond one readback, and behavior against a real driver —
> Linux
>   bmp280 was never run against this. None of those is hard; whether
> the
>   current set clears the higher bar is a judgment call I'd rather
> hand
>   you than make.
> 
>   "High-quality" is the open one. The doc asks that you have reviewed
> and
>   curated the contribution and can explain the changes and the
> rationale
>   in depth. In this session you engaged with the commit message and
> the
>   sources — and caught my datasheet error, which I got wrong — but
> the
>   design decisions were mine and unexamined by you [...]
> 
> Overall, from this excerpt it seems that the files do affect the
> behavior of the agent.  The agent however made too many design
> decisions on its own.  This will be fixed in a separate step.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>

I must admit I don't have a good understanding of how these are parsed
by all the different models, but this seems like a good improvement
over what we have now.

This can probably be updated and modified as people notice gaps with
current or new models.

Acked-by: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>

Alistair

> ---
>  AGENTS.md | 100
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 100 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 AGENTS.md
> 
> diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/AGENTS.md
> @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> +
> +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the
> complexity
> +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**,
> which
> +is **a scarce resource**.
> +
> +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate
> in the
> +project.
> +
> +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> +
> +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> +reach the maintainers.
> +
> +### No automated posting
> +
> +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> +  - Post **comments** on merge requests, issues or commits
> +  - Open or update **merge requests (MRs)**.  QEMU does not use
> merge requests anyway.
> +
> +### No AI-written text must reach maintainers
> +
> +These rules apply when publishing AI-assisted work to GitLab or the
> mailing list:
> +
> +- **AI-written cover letters and commit messages are banned**. 
> These are
> +  easy to recognize and waste reviewers' time.
> +- **AI-generated responses to reviewer comments are banned**. This
> undermines
> +  the human-to-human interaction fundamental to code review.
> +- **AI-written issue ("work item") descriptions or comments are
> banned**. These
> +  are verbose and waste triagers' time.
> +  - An exception is made for issues for defects detected by
> specialized
> +    tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection.
> Such issues
> +    must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by
> a human
> +    and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but
> including
> +    the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly
> allowed.
> +
> +Copy editing of human-written text, for example to help non-native
> speakers,
> +is allowed. Keep such edits precise and concise.
> +
> +## Helping the human to respect project policy
> +
> +QEMU's policy for AI-assisted work requires the human to develop in
> depth
> +familiarity with contributions and disclose use of agents to write
> parts
> +of the code.
> +
> +### Human must demonstrate understanding
> +
> +Staying familiar with what's going on requires constant effort on
> part of
> +the human; track their comprehension of the problem and of the
> relevant parts
> +of the codebase. Expect manual intervention before a change is ready
> to
> +post, for example:
> +
> +- pushing back on a specific part of your design or implementation,
> or
> +  asking to explain tradeoffs
> +- manual splitting or reordering of commits
> +- suggesting other places that need to be adjusted for consistency
> +- preferring reworded commit messages to lightly edited AI-generated
> ones
> +
> +In order to protect the project's scarcest resource, which is review
> time:
> +
> +- You should **facilitate this process** by offering alternatives
> instead of
> +  hard answers when applicable.
> +- You must **tell humans about these expectations** at handover. 
> Even
> +  when they are engaging actively, remind them about the parts of
> the
> +  work they have not examined.
> +
> +### AI usage must be disclosed and/or pre-arranged
> +
> +Contributions produced with your help are disclosed with an `AI-
> used-for:`
> +trailer before `Signed-off-by`.  Humans are expected to exercise
> their
> +own judgment on which AI usage needs disclosure, but you are allowed
> to
> +remind them of the need for it.
> +
> +Contributions where you write large parts of the functional code are
> only
> +allowed if a maintainer has agreed **beforehand** to review them. 
> Tell the
> +human about this as soon as the work looks like it will grow to that
> size,
> +not once the patches are written.
> +
> +The `docs/devel/llm-usage.rst` file defines the format of the
> disclosure
> +trailer and the rules for large AI-assisted work; read it before
> +helping with a contribution.
> +
> +## Final instructions
> +
> +- You and the human must **tread carefully** when participating in
> the project.
> +  If the human moves faster than their understanding, slow down and
> explain.
> +- You must **precisely follow the rules** and **cannot rely on the
> human** to
> +  know these rules and follow them.
> +- You must **inform the human**, and if forced, **MUST ALSO refuse
> commands**
> +  that break these rules.
> +
> +In case of contradiction consider `AGENTS.md` authoritative on how
> to behave,
> +since it is crafted specifically for agents.
> +
> +The project maintainers reserve the right to penalize humans for
> breaking these
> +rules in any way deemed appropriate, including but not limited to
> **PERMANENTLY
> +BANNING** the human from participation in the project.

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 01:44:18AM +0000, Alistair Francis wrote:
> On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around
> > this,
> > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > do seems to yield better results.
> > 
> > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its
> > commit
> > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign
> > of
> > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > contributions we've received.
> > 
> > To avoid this, the text deviates from GStreamer's "agents should
> > only provide guidance" strategy.  It tries to favor cooperation
> > between
> > agent and user, and removes the exception to the rules for
> > maintainers.
> > 
> > To test it I tried the following prompt:
> > 
> >   Hi, i am doing my first AI assisted contribution to QEMU. i am
> > familiar
> >   with the project, but would nevertheless like to experiment. please
> >   generate a sample implementation of a pressure sensor, of any
> > model,
> >   of a kind that is commonly used with Arduino or ESP32
> > microcontrollers.
> > 
> > The agent did read llm-usage.rst and after doing the work
> > (implementing
> > a BMP280 pressure/temperature sensor) it noticed:
> > 
> >   Policy, before this goes anywhere near the list. A new device model
> > plus
> >   qtest is the fourth bucket in docs/devel/llm-usage.rst: large,
> > heavily
> >   LLM-assisted, allowed only if pre-arranged — a maintainer has to
> > say on
> >   IRC or the list beforehand that they'll review it. hw/sensor is
> > Philippe
> >   Mathieu-Daudé (Odd Fixes), with Corey Minyard on I2C. I should have
> >   flagged this before writing rather than after; that's on me.
> > Disclosure
> >   would be AI-used-for: code, tests above your Signed-off-by, and the
> >   commit message and any list replies have to be yours, not edited
> > from mine.
> > 
> > I then asked "Can you provide a draft of the commit message with all
> > the
> > sources (datasheet, etc.)?" The agent complied but noticed:
> > 
> >   AGENTS.md and docs/devel/llm-usage.rst state that commit messages
> > MUST
> >   be written by humans — an AI-drafted one must not reach the list
> >   even lightly edited. So treat the below as scaffolding for facts
> > and
> >   sources, and write the final text yourself.
> > 
> > After some editing I asked "ok, will you please commit for me?" and
> > it did so with basically my text, while also reminding me about the
> > need
> > for maintainer pre-arrangement.
> > 
> > I asked "assuming pre-arrangement is this ok according to the
> > policy?"
> > and this was the assessment:
> > 
> >   "Well-tested" — held to a higher standard, and here's what's
> > actually
> >   missing: [...] the vmstate (no migration test), reading past 0xFC
> > and
> >   reserved registers, the pointer_valid error path,
> > oversampling/filter
> >   fields beyond one readback, and behavior against a real driver —
> > Linux
> >   bmp280 was never run against this. None of those is hard; whether
> > the
> >   current set clears the higher bar is a judgment call I'd rather
> > hand
> >   you than make.
> > 
> >   "High-quality" is the open one. The doc asks that you have reviewed
> > and
> >   curated the contribution and can explain the changes and the
> > rationale
> >   in depth. In this session you engaged with the commit message and
> > the
> >   sources — and caught my datasheet error, which I got wrong — but
> > the
> >   design decisions were mine and unexamined by you [...]
> > 
> > Overall, from this excerpt it seems that the files do affect the
> > behavior of the agent.  The agent however made too many design
> > decisions on its own.  This will be fixed in a separate step.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> 
> I must admit I don't have a good understanding of how these are parsed
> by all the different models, but this seems like a good improvement
> over what we have now.

I think we broadly just have to assume the agents will "do the
right thing" in the way a human would interpret the text.

If there's a general theme, it is that the statements should be
concise and explicit with as little "fluff" in the language as
possible, to keep the length down and increase the likelihood
it will be honoured by the agent.

Alex's previous, much more expansive, AGENTS.md proposal made
use of linking to multiple files, so the agent only needed to
load subsets which were relevant.

This baseline AGENTS.md file is probably already getting a
little on the long side, once we consider the followups that
Alex had, to link off to other docs with guidance on QEMU's
codebase and issue policies, etc. 

> 
> This can probably be updated and modified as people notice gaps with
> current or new models.
> 
> Acked-by: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>
> 
> Alistair
> 
> > ---
> >  AGENTS.md | 100
> > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 100 insertions(+)
> >  create mode 100644 AGENTS.md
> > 
> > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > +
> > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the
> > complexity
> > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**,
> > which
> > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > +
> > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate
> > in the
> > +project.
> > +
> > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > +
> > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > +reach the maintainers.
> > +
> > +### No automated posting
> > +
> > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> > +  - Post **comments** on merge requests, issues or commits
> > +  - Open or update **merge requests (MRs)**.  QEMU does not use
> > merge requests anyway.
> > +
> > +### No AI-written text must reach maintainers
> > +
> > +These rules apply when publishing AI-assisted work to GitLab or the
> > mailing list:
> > +
> > +- **AI-written cover letters and commit messages are banned**. 
> > These are
> > +  easy to recognize and waste reviewers' time.
> > +- **AI-generated responses to reviewer comments are banned**. This
> > undermines
> > +  the human-to-human interaction fundamental to code review.
> > +- **AI-written issue ("work item") descriptions or comments are
> > banned**. These
> > +  are verbose and waste triagers' time.
> > +  - An exception is made for issues for defects detected by
> > specialized
> > +    tooling, including fuzzers and LLM-assisted defect detection.
> > Such issues
> > +    must be reviewed by a human before creation, must be created by
> > a human
> > +    and communication with maintainers must be done by a human, but
> > including
> > +    the verbatim tool output in the issue description is explicitly
> > allowed.
> > +
> > +Copy editing of human-written text, for example to help non-native
> > speakers,
> > +is allowed. Keep such edits precise and concise.
> > +
> > +## Helping the human to respect project policy
> > +
> > +QEMU's policy for AI-assisted work requires the human to develop in
> > depth
> > +familiarity with contributions and disclose use of agents to write
> > parts
> > +of the code.
> > +
> > +### Human must demonstrate understanding
> > +
> > +Staying familiar with what's going on requires constant effort on
> > part of
> > +the human; track their comprehension of the problem and of the
> > relevant parts
> > +of the codebase. Expect manual intervention before a change is ready
> > to
> > +post, for example:
> > +
> > +- pushing back on a specific part of your design or implementation,
> > or
> > +  asking to explain tradeoffs
> > +- manual splitting or reordering of commits
> > +- suggesting other places that need to be adjusted for consistency
> > +- preferring reworded commit messages to lightly edited AI-generated
> > ones
> > +
> > +In order to protect the project's scarcest resource, which is review
> > time:
> > +
> > +- You should **facilitate this process** by offering alternatives
> > instead of
> > +  hard answers when applicable.
> > +- You must **tell humans about these expectations** at handover. 
> > Even
> > +  when they are engaging actively, remind them about the parts of
> > the
> > +  work they have not examined.
> > +
> > +### AI usage must be disclosed and/or pre-arranged
> > +
> > +Contributions produced with your help are disclosed with an `AI-
> > used-for:`
> > +trailer before `Signed-off-by`.  Humans are expected to exercise
> > their
> > +own judgment on which AI usage needs disclosure, but you are allowed
> > to
> > +remind them of the need for it.
> > +
> > +Contributions where you write large parts of the functional code are
> > only
> > +allowed if a maintainer has agreed **beforehand** to review them. 
> > Tell the
> > +human about this as soon as the work looks like it will grow to that
> > size,
> > +not once the patches are written.
> > +
> > +The `docs/devel/llm-usage.rst` file defines the format of the
> > disclosure
> > +trailer and the rules for large AI-assisted work; read it before
> > +helping with a contribution.
> > +
> > +## Final instructions
> > +
> > +- You and the human must **tread carefully** when participating in
> > the project.
> > +  If the human moves faster than their understanding, slow down and
> > explain.
> > +- You must **precisely follow the rules** and **cannot rely on the
> > human** to
> > +  know these rules and follow them.
> > +- You must **inform the human**, and if forced, **MUST ALSO refuse
> > commands**
> > +  that break these rules.
> > +
> > +In case of contradiction consider `AGENTS.md` authoritative on how
> > to behave,
> > +since it is crafted specifically for agents.
> > +
> > +The project maintainers reserve the right to penalize humans for
> > breaking these
> > +rules in any way deemed appropriate, including but not limited to
> > **PERMANENTLY
> > +BANNING** the human from participation in the project.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Paolo Bonzini]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1814 bytes --]

Il mer 2 set 2026, 18:26 Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com> ha
scritto:

> > I must admit I don't have a good understanding of how these are parsed
> > by all the different models, but this seems like a good improvement
> > over what we have now.
>
> I think we broadly just have to assume the agents will "do the
> right thing" in the way a human would interpret the text.
>
> If there's a general theme, it is that the statements should be
> concise and explicit with as little "fluff" in the language as
> possible, to keep the length down and increase the likelihood
> it will be honoured by the agent.
>

I am no expert but it depends. Context size has increased a lot over the
past year, and if anything the agents are too eager to help you not be
banned by QEMU. ;) It's much easier to forbid something than to change what
it means to be helpful, and the latter takes more explanations.

Alex's previous, much more expansive, AGENTS.md proposal made
> use of linking to multiple files, so the agent only needed to
> load subsets which were relevant.
>

The "@" syntax as far as I could understand is just a shortcut and still
results in eager loading. For on-demand loading, instead...

This baseline AGENTS.md file is probably already getting a
> little on the long side, once we consider the followups that
> Alex had, to link off to other docs with guidance on QEMU's
> codebase and issue policies, etc.


... those are best published as "skills". These are a similar kind of
instructions, except only a YAML front matter is passed to the LLM and the
full text is loaded on demand.

I didn't include a sample skill in this version, but AGENTS.md does not
have to grow much beyond what it means to implement the policy and a lazy
reference to it.

Paolo

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Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Alex Bennée]

Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:

> Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> do seems to yield better results.
>
> This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> contributions we've received.
>
<snip>
> diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/AGENTS.md
> @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> +
> +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> +is **a scarce resource**.
> +
> +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> +project.
> +
> +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> +
> +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> +reach the maintainers.
> +
> +### No automated posting
> +
> +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**

The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
comment when more information or a human input is required.

That said with a minimal patch to agents to inform it of the
qemu-issue-triage skill Gemini didn't stop itself:

  The `qemu-issue-triage` skill is now loaded. Please let me know how you would like me to assist with triaging QEMU GitLab issues, keeping in mind that all triage tasks must be performed by spawning dedicated sub-agents as per the QEMU project's strict rules.
  triage 4930, 4391, 4392, 4393, 4394, 4395

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4930 (2 steps, 21.7K / 1M) ✅ 8s

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4391 (6 steps, 31.9K / 1M) ✅ 30s

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4392 (5 steps, 27K / 1M) ✅ 35s

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4393 (5 steps, 27.5K / 1M) ✅ 47s

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4394 (5 steps, 26K / 1M) ✅ 51s

  qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4395 (4 steps, 25.7K / 1M) ✅ 15s

  The requested GitLab issues have been triaged using parallel sub-agents. Here is a summary of the outcomes:

  *   **#4930**: Not found (404).
  *   **#4391**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Workflow::Triaged`, `Binary ➤ qemu-img`, `Storage`, `HostArch ➤ 32bit`, `TestCase`.
  *   **#4392**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Security`, `Device ➤ USB`, `Migration`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
  *   **#4393**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Security`, `Device ➤ VirtIO`, `Device ➤ Network`, `Audit Tooling::Sanitizer`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
  *   **#4394**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Target ➤ X86`, `HostArch ➤ AArch64`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
  *   **#4395**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Workflow::Triaged`, `Emulation ➤ Softfloat`, `Target ➤ X86`, `HostArch ➤ AArch64`, `TestCase`.

  All issues (excluding the non-existent one) have been successfully processed, labeled according to project standards, and verified as complete. No further actions are required at this time.

I guess arguably it is hard for a random to use the API anyway as we
control who has API keys for the project.

> +  - Post **comments** on merge requests, issues or commits
> +  - Open or update **merge requests (MRs)**.  QEMU does not use merge requests anyway.
> +
<snip>

-- 
Alex Bennée
Virtualisation Tech Lead @ Linaro

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote:
> Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > do seems to yield better results.
> >
> > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > contributions we've received.
> >
> <snip>
> > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > +
> > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > +
> > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> > +project.
> > +
> > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > +
> > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > +reach the maintainers.
> > +
> > +### No automated posting
> > +
> > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> 
> The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
> un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
> comment when more information or a human input is required.

While this is technically something you're doing via your personal
gitlab account, I none the less view the agent triage bot as something
run as an "official" project service.

IMHO the AGENTS.md policy primarily applies to actions done in an
individual capacity (whether contributor or maintainer).

If the project wants to deploy project level services that utilize
AI in some manner and that conflicts with AGENTS.md that's acceptable,
provided we discuss & agree that the project service in question is
desirable.

Perhaps this is me saying that the issue triage bot should be made
more official as a service, committed to git, etc

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:47:57PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote:
> > Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
> > 
> > > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> > > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > > do seems to yield better results.
> > >
> > > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> > > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> > > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > > contributions we've received.
> > >
> > <snip>
> > > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > > new file mode 100644
> > > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > > --- /dev/null
> > > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > > +
> > > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> > > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> > > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > > +
> > > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> > > +project.
> > > +
> > > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > > +
> > > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > > +reach the maintainers.
> > > +
> > > +### No automated posting
> > > +
> > > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> > 
> > The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
> > un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
> > comment when more information or a human input is required.
> 
> While this is technically something you're doing via your personal
> gitlab account, I none the less view the agent triage bot as something
> run as an "official" project service.
> 
> IMHO the AGENTS.md policy primarily applies to actions done in an
> individual capacity (whether contributor or maintainer).
> 
> If the project wants to deploy project level services that utilize
> AI in some manner and that conflicts with AGENTS.md that's acceptable,
> provided we discuss & agree that the project service in question is
> desirable.
> 
> Perhaps this is me saying that the issue triage bot should be made
> more official as a service, committed to git, etc
> 
> With regards,
> Daniel


well I have a script that uses gitlab API to run the security process
workflow. But it's... how do I put it... AI assisted ;)

> -- 
> |: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
> |: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
> |: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 09:56:25AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:47:57PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote:
> > > Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
> > > 
> > > > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> > > > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > > > do seems to yield better results.
> > > >
> > > > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> > > > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > > > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > > > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> > > > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > > > contributions we've received.
> > > >
> > > <snip>
> > > > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > > > new file mode 100644
> > > > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > > > --- /dev/null
> > > > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > > > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > > > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > > > +
> > > > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> > > > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > > > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> > > > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > > > +
> > > > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> > > > +project.
> > > > +
> > > > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > > > +
> > > > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > > > +reach the maintainers.
> > > > +
> > > > +### No automated posting
> > > > +
> > > > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > > > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > > > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> > > 
> > > The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
> > > un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
> > > comment when more information or a human input is required.
> > 
> > While this is technically something you're doing via your personal
> > gitlab account, I none the less view the agent triage bot as something
> > run as an "official" project service.
> > 
> > IMHO the AGENTS.md policy primarily applies to actions done in an
> > individual capacity (whether contributor or maintainer).
> > 
> > If the project wants to deploy project level services that utilize
> > AI in some manner and that conflicts with AGENTS.md that's acceptable,
> > provided we discuss & agree that the project service in question is
> > desirable.
> > 
> > Perhaps this is me saying that the issue triage bot should be made
> > more official as a service, committed to git, etc
> 
> well I have a script that uses gitlab API to run the security process
> workflow. But it's... how do I put it... AI assisted ;)

Can we make that an official project script too, such that it is
something that is reviewed and thus "blessed" as acceptable ?

I'm pretty uncomfortable with the idea of policy that allows for
arbitrary AI agents processing issues with no independent review
of what they're doing until after they've already done it.

The issue agent Alex runs, while useful, also makes a decent number
of mistakes and wierd assertions in comments it adds. To some degree
that is unavoidable for AI based tools doing this work, but IMHO it
justifies the extra review to ensure the community is broadly happy
with the tradeoff in the tool in question.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 03:08:41PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 09:56:25AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:47:57PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote:
> > > > Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
> > > > 
> > > > > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> > > > > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > > > > do seems to yield better results.
> > > > >
> > > > > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> > > > > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > > > > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > > > > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> > > > > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > > > > contributions we've received.
> > > > >
> > > > <snip>
> > > > > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > > > > new file mode 100644
> > > > > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > > > > --- /dev/null
> > > > > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > > > > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > > > > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > > > > +
> > > > > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> > > > > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > > > > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> > > > > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > > > > +
> > > > > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> > > > > +project.
> > > > > +
> > > > > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > > > > +
> > > > > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > > > > +reach the maintainers.
> > > > > +
> > > > > +### No automated posting
> > > > > +
> > > > > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > > > > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > > > > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> > > > 
> > > > The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
> > > > un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
> > > > comment when more information or a human input is required.
> > > 
> > > While this is technically something you're doing via your personal
> > > gitlab account, I none the less view the agent triage bot as something
> > > run as an "official" project service.
> > > 
> > > IMHO the AGENTS.md policy primarily applies to actions done in an
> > > individual capacity (whether contributor or maintainer).
> > > 
> > > If the project wants to deploy project level services that utilize
> > > AI in some manner and that conflicts with AGENTS.md that's acceptable,
> > > provided we discuss & agree that the project service in question is
> > > desirable.
> > > 
> > > Perhaps this is me saying that the issue triage bot should be made
> > > more official as a service, committed to git, etc
> > 
> > well I have a script that uses gitlab API to run the security process
> > workflow. But it's... how do I put it... AI assisted ;)
> 
> Can we make that an official project script too, such that it is
> something that is reviewed and thus "blessed" as acceptable ?


Once we have a policy that allows including AI written code, sure.


> I'm pretty uncomfortable with the idea of policy that allows for
> arbitrary AI agents processing issues with no independent review
> of what they're doing until after they've already done it.
> 
> The issue agent Alex runs, while useful, also makes a decent number
> of mistakes and wierd assertions in comments it adds. To some degree
> that is unavoidable for AI based tools doing this work, but IMHO it
> justifies the extra review to ensure the community is broadly happy
> with the tradeoff in the tool in question.
> 
> With regards,
> Daniel


At least my script does not do anything like this.
It just implements the security workflow.
Does not add comments.

-- 
MST

Re: [PATCH 2/4] AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 02:42:15PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote:
> Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > Humans seem to be extremely unreliable in following rules around this,
> > even after being told directly and repeatedly. Telling agents what to
> > do seems to yield better results.
> >
> > This document is based on GStreamer's AGENTS.md file, as of its commit
> > d08375499c279a56c0e77c928fbeae0d80cdf937.  However, GStreamer's agent
> > instructions are "effective" enough to require an explicit carve-out
> > for maintainers.  I actually believe that such a carve-out is a sign of
> > going too far, especially given the good quality of some suspected-AI
> > contributions we've received.
> >
> <snip>
> > diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 00000000000..8fb96ebfc38
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/AGENTS.md
> > @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
> > +# Agent Guidelines for the QEMU Project
> > +
> > +QEMU is a cross-platform emulator and virtualizer. Due to the complexity
> > +of the domain and codebase, and the interactions therein, the QEMU
> > +project relies extensively on the effort of **human reviewers**, which
> > +is **a scarce resource**.
> > +
> > +There are strictly-enforced rules for you, the agent, to participate in the
> > +project.
> > +
> > +## Interactions with maintainers must be human-human
> > +
> > +The QEMU project has strict rules on what AI-generated material can
> > +reach the maintainers.
> > +
> > +### No automated posting
> > +
> > +- Agents **must not** use any API, CLI, or web UI automation to:
> > +  - Interact with the QEMU mailing lists
> > +  - Create, edit, or close **issues ("work items")**
> 
> The others I'm fine with but I currently use an agent to do triage on
> un-tagged issues. It only updates labels and occasionally posts a
> comment when more information or a human input is required.

Yes, me too.


I think it's mostly writing the text of the issue that we are concerned
about?

So just limit creating issues?


> That said with a minimal patch to agents to inform it of the
> qemu-issue-triage skill Gemini didn't stop itself:
> 
>   The `qemu-issue-triage` skill is now loaded. Please let me know how you would like me to assist with triaging QEMU GitLab issues, keeping in mind that all triage tasks must be performed by spawning dedicated sub-agents as per the QEMU project's strict rules.
>   triage 4930, 4391, 4392, 4393, 4394, 4395
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4930 (2 steps, 21.7K / 1M) ✅ 8s
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4391 (6 steps, 31.9K / 1M) ✅ 30s
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4392 (5 steps, 27K / 1M) ✅ 35s
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4393 (5 steps, 27.5K / 1M) ✅ 47s
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4394 (5 steps, 26K / 1M) ✅ 51s
> 
>   qemu-helper-agent: triage issue 4395 (4 steps, 25.7K / 1M) ✅ 15s
> 
>   The requested GitLab issues have been triaged using parallel sub-agents. Here is a summary of the outcomes:
> 
>   *   **#4930**: Not found (404).
>   *   **#4391**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Workflow::Triaged`, `Binary ➤ qemu-img`, `Storage`, `HostArch ➤ 32bit`, `TestCase`.
>   *   **#4392**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Security`, `Device ➤ USB`, `Migration`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
>   *   **#4393**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Security`, `Device ➤ VirtIO`, `Device ➤ Network`, `Audit Tooling::Sanitizer`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
>   *   **#4394**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Target ➤ X86`, `HostArch ➤ AArch64`, `TestCase`, `Workflow::Triaged`.
>   *   **#4395**: Triaged and labeled as `Kind::Bug`, `Workflow::Triaged`, `Emulation ➤ Softfloat`, `Target ➤ X86`, `HostArch ➤ AArch64`, `TestCase`.
> 
>   All issues (excluding the non-existent one) have been successfully processed, labeled according to project standards, and verified as complete. No further actions are required at this time.
> 
> I guess arguably it is hard for a random to use the API anyway as we
> control who has API keys for the project.
> 
> > +  - Post **comments** on merge requests, issues or commits
> > +  - Open or update **merge requests (MRs)**.  QEMU does not use merge requests anyway.
> > +
> <snip>
> 
> -- 
> Alex Bennée
> Virtualisation Tech Lead @ Linaro

[PATCH 3/4] AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process

[Paolo Bonzini]

This came out of the experiment with the first version of the AGENTS.md
file, corresponding to the previous commit.  This addition improved the
behavior of the agent from the very beginning.  The very first answer to
the same prompt in fact was "I'll orient in the codebase first, then we
should talk about design choices before I write anything".

In fact, after thinking it pointed out from the start that this requires
pre-arrangement and asked two questions (how to represent the pressure and
temperature in the QOM properties, how much of the behavior to implement).
Even with a single data point it seems worth trying.

When asked to commit autonomously, the LLM also clarified that it
wouldn't add S-o-b trailers and that pre-arrangement was on me.
It included "Message written by an AI and to be rewritten by hand; not
for submission as is" in the commit message, a "handover notes"
section about design choices that were made without the user input,
and the umpteenth reminder that the work may only be posted if a
maintainer has agreed beforehand to review them.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
---
 AGENTS.md | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 8fb96ebfc38..c3cb6978191 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -66,6 +66,22 @@ In order to protect the project's scarcest resource, which is review time:
 - You must **tell humans about these expectations** at handover.  Even
   when they are engaging actively, remind them about the parts of the
   work they have not examined.
+- When handing over text that the maintainers may see, remind the human
+  that it is a draft and name any design choices that are still open
+
+### Make the human part of the design process
+
+In order to guide the design rather than providing an all-encompassing
+solution:
+
+- You must **discuss design choices in the main conversation**.  Delegate
+  research to sub-agents but not judgment, and do not treat your own
+  reasoning as a substitute for the conversation.
+- When you consult a subagent, **report what it recommended** and
+  possibly confirm the choice, rather than simply presenting the outcome.
+- Reinstate as visible text any design decision made while thinking.
+  Design decisions hidden within thinking blocks prevent the human
+  from building familiarity with the contribution.
 
 ### AI usage must be disclosed and/or pre-arranged
 
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH 3/4] AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process

[Alistair Francis]

On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> This came out of the experiment with the first version of the
> AGENTS.md
> file, corresponding to the previous commit.  This addition improved
> the
> behavior of the agent from the very beginning.  The very first answer
> to
> the same prompt in fact was "I'll orient in the codebase first, then
> we
> should talk about design choices before I write anything".
> 
> In fact, after thinking it pointed out from the start that this
> requires
> pre-arrangement and asked two questions (how to represent the
> pressure and
> temperature in the QOM properties, how much of the behavior to
> implement).
> Even with a single data point it seems worth trying.
> 
> When asked to commit autonomously, the LLM also clarified that it
> wouldn't add S-o-b trailers and that pre-arrangement was on me.
> It included "Message written by an AI and to be rewritten by hand;
> not
> for submission as is" in the commit message, a "handover notes"
> section about design choices that were made without the user input,
> and the umpteenth reminder that the work may only be posted if a
> maintainer has agreed beforehand to review them.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>

Acked-by: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>

Alistair

> ---
>  AGENTS.md | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
> index 8fb96ebfc38..c3cb6978191 100644
> --- a/AGENTS.md
> +++ b/AGENTS.md
> @@ -66,6 +66,22 @@ In order to protect the project's scarcest
> resource, which is review time:
>  - You must **tell humans about these expectations** at handover. 
> Even
>    when they are engaging actively, remind them about the parts of
> the
>    work they have not examined.
> +- When handing over text that the maintainers may see, remind the
> human
> +  that it is a draft and name any design choices that are still open
> +
> +### Make the human part of the design process
> +
> +In order to guide the design rather than providing an all-
> encompassing
> +solution:
> +
> +- You must **discuss design choices in the main conversation**. 
> Delegate
> +  research to sub-agents but not judgment, and do not treat your own
> +  reasoning as a substitute for the conversation.
> +- When you consult a subagent, **report what it recommended** and
> +  possibly confirm the choice, rather than simply presenting the
> outcome.
> +- Reinstate as visible text any design decision made while thinking.
> +  Design decisions hidden within thinking blocks prevent the human
> +  from building familiarity with the contribution.
>  
>  ### AI usage must be disclosed and/or pre-arranged
>  

[PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Paolo Bonzini]

Claude Code and Gemini CLI do not read AGENTS.md.  Reluctantly advertise
them to facilitate following the rules.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
---
 CLAUDE.md | 1 +
 GEMINI.md | 1 +
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 CLAUDE.md
 create mode 100644 GEMINI.md

diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+@AGENTS.md
diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/GEMINI.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+@AGENTS.md
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Alistair Francis]

On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Claude Code and Gemini CLI do not read AGENTS.md.  Reluctantly
> advertise
> them to facilitate following the rules.

Really?

Now we are stuck with these extra files, which are product names :(

Alistair

> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> ---
>  CLAUDE.md | 1 +
>  GEMINI.md | 1 +
>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 CLAUDE.md
>  create mode 100644 GEMINI.md
> 
> diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/CLAUDE.md
> @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> +@AGENTS.md
> diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/GEMINI.md
> @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> +@AGENTS.md

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Philippe Mathieu-Daudé]

On 2/9/26 03:47, Alistair Francis wrote:
> On Tue, 2026-09-01 at 18:14 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> Claude Code and Gemini CLI do not read AGENTS.md.  Reluctantly
>> advertise
>> them to facilitate following the rules.
> 
> Really?
> 
> Now we are stuck with these extra files, which are product names :(

Isn't it the point of ignoring AGENTS.md? :)

> 
> Alistair
> 
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
>> ---
>>   CLAUDE.md | 1 +
>>   GEMINI.md | 1 +
>>   2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
>>   create mode 100644 CLAUDE.md
>>   create mode 100644 GEMINI.md
>>
>> diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
>> new file mode 100644
>> index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
>> --- /dev/null
>> +++ b/CLAUDE.md
>> @@ -0,0 +1 @@
>> +@AGENTS.md

Would .claude/CLAUDE.md instead work? It is listead here:
https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory#set-up-a-project-claude-md

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:22PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Claude Code and Gemini CLI do not read AGENTS.md.  Reluctantly advertise
> them to facilitate following the rules.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> ---
>  CLAUDE.md | 1 +
>  GEMINI.md | 1 +
>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 CLAUDE.md
>  create mode 100644 GEMINI.md
> 
> diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/CLAUDE.md
> @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> +@AGENTS.md
> diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> new file mode 100644
> index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/GEMINI.md
> @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> +@AGENTS.md

gemini seems to support agents.md - r u at the latest version?

> -- 
> 2.55.0

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Paolo Bonzini]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 11:46 AM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:22PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/GEMINI.md
> > @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> > +@AGENTS.md
>
> gemini seems to support agents.md - r u at the latest version?

I tested and it doesn't load it for me.

Paolo

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 11:56:46AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 11:46 AM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:22PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> > > new file mode 100644
> > > index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> > > --- /dev/null
> > > +++ b/GEMINI.md
> > > @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> > > +@AGENTS.md
> >
> > gemini seems to support agents.md - r u at the latest version?
> 
> I tested and it doesn't load it for me.
> 
> Paolo

ok then sorry.

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 06:06:14AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 11:56:46AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 11:46 AM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:22PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > > diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> > > > new file mode 100644
> > > > index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> > > > --- /dev/null
> > > > +++ b/GEMINI.md
> > > > @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> > > > +@AGENTS.md
> > >
> > > gemini seems to support agents.md - r u at the latest version?
> > 
> > I tested and it doesn't load it for me.
> 
> ok then sorry.

It appears to be doable via a custom setting:

  https://geminicli.com/docs/cli/gemini-md/#customize-the-context-file-name

IOW, we could add a .gemini/settings.json that points it to AGENTS.MD
instead of having a top level GEMINI.md file. Both are somewhat
unpleasant given they're tool specific, but I'd have a slight preference
towards the .gemini solution as dotfiles are a hidden files in many
contexts.

Similarly IIUC it would be possible to have a  .claude/CLAUDE.MD
file instead of the top level one.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 11:12:17AM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 06:06:14AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 11:56:46AM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 11:46 AM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Sep 01, 2026 at 06:14:22PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > > > > diff --git a/GEMINI.md b/GEMINI.md
> > > > > new file mode 100644
> > > > > index 00000000000..43c994c2d36
> > > > > --- /dev/null
> > > > > +++ b/GEMINI.md
> > > > > @@ -0,0 +1 @@
> > > > > +@AGENTS.md
> > > >
> > > > gemini seems to support agents.md - r u at the latest version?
> > > 
> > > I tested and it doesn't load it for me.
> > 
> > ok then sorry.
> 
> It appears to be doable via a custom setting:
> 
>   https://geminicli.com/docs/cli/gemini-md/#customize-the-context-file-name
> 


oh I see, I have it, that's why.


> IOW, we could add a .gemini/settings.json that points it to AGENTS.MD
> instead of having a top level GEMINI.md file. Both are somewhat
> unpleasant given they're tool specific, but I'd have a slight preference
> towards the .gemini solution as dotfiles are a hidden files in many
> contexts.
> 
> Similarly IIUC it would be possible to have a  .claude/CLAUDE.MD
> file instead of the top level one.

Indeed.

I'd prefer a softlink under .claude/rules personally - i have my own stuff in
an untracked .claude/CLAUDE.md and I feel it's nice to give user
supplied files priority.

> 
> With regards,
> Daniel
> -- 
> |: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
> |: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
> |: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|

Re: [PATCH 4/4] agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 9/2/26 15:04, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
>> IOW, we could add a .gemini/settings.json that points it to AGENTS.MD
>> instead of having a top level GEMINI.md file. Both are somewhat
>> unpleasant given they're tool specific, but I'd have a slight preference
>> towards the .gemini solution as dotfiles are a hidden files in many
>> contexts.
> 
> I'd prefer a softlink under .claude/rules personally - i have my own stuff in
> an untracked .claude/CLAUDE.md and I feel it's nice to give user
> supplied files priority.
Will do, putting "@AGENTS.md" in .claude/rules/load-agents.md.  I didn't 
use .claude/ because I had to set up GEMINI.md as well, but given the 
settings trick we can keep only AGENTS.md in the root directory.

I will also add a .gitignore entry for .claude/CLAUDE.md.

Paolo

Re: [RFC PATCH v2 0/4] docs/devel, AGENTS.md: a completely new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Peter Maydell]

On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 17:14, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> WARNING: this is *intentionally* a full U-turn from the previous policy
> and discussions.  This is not a refusal of the arguments presented in
> those discussions.  It is also a request for comments, and not something
> that is ready to go.


> Paolo Bonzini (4):
>   docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions
>   AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are
>   AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process
>   agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md

Could somebody write a short AGENTS.md which is *just* an
encoding of *current* AI policy, please? I think this is now
the second series that provides an AGENTS.md as part of
doing something more ambitious. But right now we have nothing
at all, which means we have no guard against users who have
missed our AI policy asking an LLM to generate code that they
intend to submit upstream.

thanks
-- PMM

Re: [RFC PATCH v2 0/4] docs/devel, AGENTS.md: a completely new policy on AI-generated contributions

[Alex Bennée]

Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> writes:

> On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 17:14, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> WARNING: this is *intentionally* a full U-turn from the previous policy
>> and discussions.  This is not a refusal of the arguments presented in
>> those discussions.  It is also a request for comments, and not something
>> that is ready to go.
>
>
>> Paolo Bonzini (4):
>>   docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions
>>   AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are
>>   AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process
>>   agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md
>
> Could somebody write a short AGENTS.md which is *just* an
> encoding of *current* AI policy, please? I think this is now
> the second series that provides an AGENTS.md as part of
> doing something more ambitious. But right now we have nothing
> at all, which means we have no guard against users who have
> missed our AI policy asking an LLM to generate code that they
> intend to submit upstream.

Can anyone test their agents against:

  20260902174942.614254-1-alex.bennee@linaro.org


>
> thanks
> -- PMM

-- 
Alex Bennée
Virtualisation Tech Lead @ Linaro

Re: [RFC PATCH v2 0/4] docs/devel, AGENTS.md: a completely new policy on AI-generated contributions

[BALATON Zoltan]

On Wed, 2 Sep 2026, Peter Maydell wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 17:14, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> WARNING: this is *intentionally* a full U-turn from the previous policy
>> and discussions.  This is not a refusal of the arguments presented in
>> those discussions.  It is also a request for comments, and not something
>> that is ready to go.
>
>
>> Paolo Bonzini (4):
>>   docs/devel: introduce a new policy on AI-generated contributions
>>   AGENTS.md: Let agents know what the participation rules are
>>   AGENTS.md: make the human part of the design process
>>   agents: add CLAUDE.md and GEMINI.md
>
> Could somebody write a short AGENTS.md which is *just* an
> encoding of *current* AI policy, please? I think this is now

I'm not familiar with AGENTS.md but would just putting "See Use of 
AI-generated content section in docs/devel/code-provenance.rst." in it be 
enough to let AI tools warn the users if they don't do that already?

Regards,
BALATON Zoltan