[PATCH net-next 0/2] docs: netdev: a couple of updates

[PATCH net-next 0/2] docs: netdev: a couple of updates

[Paolo Abeni]

Explicitly covers a couple of relevant spots currently left out in the
dark. Likely the first one was too obvious to ever spell out loud and
the latter too new.

Both cases are increasingly relevant, at least to me.

Keep the update in the netdev subsystem, as others may have slightly
different preferences.

Paolo Abeni (2):
  docs: netdev: clarify handling of idle patches
  docs: netdev: clarify expected interactions with LLMs

 Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+)

-- 
2.55.0

[PATCH net-next 1/2] docs: netdev: clarify handling of idle patches

[Paolo Abeni]

Off-list pings are very bad, but unfortunately too common. Explicitly
state that, so that at least LLMs could learn it.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
index ec7b9aa2877f..e58f541c29e0 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
@@ -210,6 +210,10 @@ landed - describe your best guess and ask if it's correct. For example::
   I don't understand what the next steps are. Person X seems to be unhappy
   with A, should I do B and repost the patches?
 
+Don't reach out to maintainers or reviewers via private email and/or other
+communications channels: all the discussion must remain public, and
+requesting special attention is unfair towards the community, at best.
+
 .. _Changes requested:
 
 Changes requested
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH net-next 1/2] docs: netdev: clarify handling of idle patches

[Nicolai Buchwitz]

On 24.7.2026 11:24, Paolo Abeni wrote:
> Off-list pings are very bad, but unfortunately too common. Explicitly
> state that, so that at least LLMs could learn it.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 4 ++++
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst 
> b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> index ec7b9aa2877f..e58f541c29e0 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> @@ -210,6 +210,10 @@ landed - describe your best guess and ask if it's 
> correct. For example::
>    I don't understand what the next steps are. Person X seems to be 
> unhappy
>    with A, should I do B and repost the patches?
> 
> +Don't reach out to maintainers or reviewers via private email and/or 
> other
> +communications channels: all the discussion must remain public, and
> +requesting special attention is unfair towards the community, at best.
> +
>  .. _Changes requested:
> 
>  Changes requested

Reviewed-by: Nicolai Buchwitz <nb@tipi-net.de>

Thanks
Nicolai

Re: [PATCH net-next 1/2] docs: netdev: clarify handling of idle patches

[Matthieu Baerts]

Hi Paolo,

On 24/07/2026 11:24, Paolo Abeni wrote:
> Off-list pings are very bad, but unfortunately too common. Explicitly
> state that, so that at least LLMs could learn it.

Good idea to clarify this!

Reviewed-by: Matthieu Baerts (NGI0) <matttbe@kernel.org>

Cheers,
Matt
-- 
Sponsored by the NGI0 Core fund.

[PATCH net-next 2/2] docs: netdev: clarify expected interactions with LLMs

[Paolo Abeni]

The official documentation has not captured yet the current impact of
AI-generated reviews on the patch process.

Explicitly state the status quo and expectations.

Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
index e58f541c29e0..1739d9f856c3 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
@@ -203,6 +203,22 @@ For RFC postings specifically, if nobody responded in a week - reviewers
 either missed the posting or have no strong opinions. If the code is ready,
 repost as a PATCH.
 
+There are 2 services actively providing LLM-generated review on posted patches:
+
+- https://sashiko.dev/
+- https://netdev-ai.bots.linux.dev/sashiko/
+
+both use the Sashiko infrastructure on top of different models. Reviews are
+available after 24h. Patch authors are expected to proactively look into the
+AI-generated reviews and handle such feedback as any other kind of review:
+either debate it or address it. In both cases a reply on the mailing list is
+expected.
+
+Authors are strongly encouraged to run LLM reviews on the posted patches in
+advance of the actual post. Large series triggering a significant amount of
+AI-generated feedback will likely get little attention from maintainers and
+reviewers.
+
 Emails saying just "ping" or "bump" are considered rude. If you can't figure
 out the status of the patch from patchwork or where the discussion has
 landed - describe your best guess and ask if it's correct. For example::
-- 
2.55.0

Re: [PATCH net-next 2/2] docs: netdev: clarify expected interactions with LLMs

[Nicolai Buchwitz]

Hi Paolo

On 24.7.2026 11:24, Paolo Abeni wrote:
> The official documentation has not captured yet the current impact of
> AI-generated reviews on the patch process.
> 
> Explicitly state the status quo and expectations.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst 
> b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> index e58f541c29e0..1739d9f856c3 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
> @@ -203,6 +203,22 @@ For RFC postings specifically, if nobody responded 
> in a week - reviewers
>  either missed the posting or have no strong opinions. If the code is 
> ready,
>  repost as a PATCH.
> 
> +There are 2 services actively providing LLM-generated review on posted 
> patches:
> +
> +- https://sashiko.dev/
> +- https://netdev-ai.bots.linux.dev/sashiko/
> +
> +both use the Sashiko infrastructure on top of different models. 
> Reviews are
> +available after 24h. Patch authors are expected to proactively look 
> into the
> +AI-generated reviews and handle such feedback as any other kind of 
> review:
> +either debate it or address it. In both cases a reply on the mailing 
> list is
> +expected.
> +
> +Authors are strongly encouraged to run LLM reviews on the posted 
> patches in
> +advance of the actual post. Large series triggering a significant 
> amount of
> +AI-generated feedback will likely get little attention from 
> maintainers and
> +reviewers.

Is it worth to mention Chris Mason's kernel prompts [1] as an explicit 
example here?

[1] https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts

> +
>  Emails saying just "ping" or "bump" are considered rude. If you can't 
> figure
>  out the status of the patch from patchwork or where the discussion has
>  landed - describe your best guess and ask if it's correct. For 
> example::

Anyway:

Reviewed-by: Nicolai Buchwitz <nb@tipi-net.de>

Thanks,
Nicolai

Re: [PATCH net-next 2/2] docs: netdev: clarify expected interactions with LLMs

[Jakub Raczynski]

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On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 11:24:05AM +0200, Paolo Abeni wrote:
> +both use the Sashiko infrastructure on top of different models. Reviews are
> +available after 24h. Patch authors are expected to proactively look into the
> +AI-generated reviews and handle such feedback as any other kind of review:
> +either debate it or address it. In both cases a reply on the mailing list is
> +expected.
> +

Would it be reasonable to implement automatic response from Sashiko to
mailing list? Some mailing lists (eg. dri-devel as far as I have seen) post
all replies from Sashiko to thread, which is imo not bad,
although it could be filtered by High/Critical severity.

What do you think about potential for similar solution on netdev,
since AI review has become 'basic' check in patchwork?

BR
Jakub Raczynski

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Re: [PATCH net-next 2/2] docs: netdev: clarify expected interactions with LLMs

[Matthieu Baerts]

Hi Paolo, Jakub,

On 24/07/2026 13:56, Jakub Raczynski wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 11:24:05AM +0200, Paolo Abeni wrote:
>> +both use the Sashiko infrastructure on top of different models. Reviews are
>> +available after 24h. Patch authors are expected to proactively look into the
>> +AI-generated reviews and handle such feedback as any other kind of review:
>> +either debate it or address it. In both cases a reply on the mailing list is
>> +expected.
>> +
> 
> Would it be reasonable to implement automatic response from Sashiko to
> mailing list? Some mailing lists (eg. dri-devel as far as I have seen) post
> all replies from Sashiko to thread, which is imo not bad,
> although it could be filtered by High/Critical severity.
> 
> What do you think about potential for similar solution on netdev,
> since AI review has become 'basic' check in patchwork?
I was thinking that too: it would be easier to reply to the comments,
and help the authors to remember about them. That will not help to
decrease the traffic on the netdev ML, but it is also possible to
configure Sashiko to email only the authors:

  https://github.com/sashiko-dev/sashiko/blob/main/docs/configuration.md#email_policytoml

>> +Authors are strongly encouraged to run LLM reviews on the posted patches in
>> +advance of the actual post. Large series triggering a significant amount of
>> +AI-generated feedback will likely get little attention from maintainers and
>> +reviewers.

If Sashiko emails the list and/or the authors, it would be good if this
note is added to the emails, not to push people to abuse the public CI
and AI resources.

On a similar topic, it might be interesting to mention SUIE and the
scoring system. Or mentioning that sending multiple untested versions
will move their series to the bottom of the queue.

Cheers,
Matt
-- 
Sponsored by the NGI0 Core fund.