Re: [RFC] doc: add AGENTS.md for AI-powered code review tools

Stephen Hemminger
2026-01-10T17:28:23Z

On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 09:58:38 +0000
Marat Khalili <marat.khalili@huawei.com> wrote:

> In my very limited experience it helps to tell the model that all commits (both
> patch and commit message) MUST pass devtools/checkpatches.sh, ideally
> configured (and verified) as a git hook, clear justification must be
> provided in rare exception cases.

Models don't really run scripts. Would like the auto code review tools
to do a better job of pre-parsing for checkpatch rules and explaining better.

> From the general programming principles I'm unsure about duplicating
> information already available in doc/guides/contributing in the same tree.
> Perhaps we could just instruct the model to read patches.rst and
> coding_style.rst, they are not very big (and models typically know Linux and
> PIP8 rules already). Otherwise we risk one of the documents becoming outdated,
> or rules/nuances omitted in the summarized version ignored. In instructions
> specifically for the model we could focus on things that are persistent source
> of problems for it despite instructions for humans being clear.
>
> Just my 2c, great that someone is working on this.

I am not sure that models will always interpret our documentation the same
and this looks clearer. Also, there is lots of overlap with other projects
which is not covered in DPDK alone.