Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add agent coding assistant configuration to Linux kernel

Lorenzo Stoakes
2025-07-30T17:11:11Z

On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 04:40:39PM +0000, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> * Steven Rostedt (rostedt@goodmis.org) wrote:
> > On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 16:34:28 +0100
> > Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > Which looked like someone else (now Cc'd on this thread) took it public,
>
> (I didn't know of the tab discussion)
>
> > > > and I wanted to see where that ended. I didn't want to start another
> > > > discussion when there's already two in progress.
> > >
> > > OK, but having a document like this is not in my view optional - we must
> > > have a clear, stated policy and one which ideally makes plain that it's
> > > opt-in and maintainers may choose not to take these patches.
> >
> > That sounds pretty much exactly as what I was stating in our meeting. That
> > is, it is OK to submit a patch written with AI but you must disclose it. It
> > is also the right of the Maintainer to refuse to take any patch that was
> > written in AI. They may feel that they want someone who fully understands
> > what that patch does, and AI can cloud the knowledge of that patch from the
> > author.
> >
> > I guess a statement in submitting-patches.rst would suffice, or should it
> > be a separate standalone document?
>
> If it's separate I think it needs to have a link from submitting-patches.rst
> to get people to read it.

Absolutely agree.

>
> To summarise some other things that came up between the threads:
> a) I think there should be a standard syntax for stating it is
> AI written; I'd suggested using a new tag, but others were
> arguing on the side of reusing existing tags, which seems OK
> if it is done in a standard way and doesn't confuse existing tools.

Yes.

>
> b) There's a whole spectrum of:
> i) AI wrote the whole patch based on a vague requirement
> ii) AI is in the editor and tab completes stuff
> iii) AI suggests fixes/changes
> which do you care about?

I think any AI involvment that results in _changes to the code_ should
require the tag.

>
> c) But then once you get stuff suggesting fixes/changes people were
> wondering if you should specify other non-AI tools as well.
> That might help reviewers who get bombed by a million patches
> from some conventional tool.

I think this would be useful, yes.

We'd had isues with this before. It'd be good to standardise, ideally.

>
> d) Either way there needs to be emphasis that the 'Signed-off-by'
> is a human declaring it's all legal and checked.

This is also a wise point with which I agree.