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

["Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>]

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
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