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Updated AI usage policy for contributions#10412

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mitchellh merged 1 commit intomainfrom
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Jan 22, 2026
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Updated AI usage policy for contributions#10412
mitchellh merged 1 commit intomainfrom
push-tzozpqpwqmmz

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@mitchellh
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@mitchellh mitchellh commented Jan 22, 2026

Follow up to #8289

The rise of agentic programming has eliminated the natural effort-based backpressure that previously limited low-effort contributions. It is now too easy to create large amounts of bad content with minimal effort.

Open source projects have always had poor quality issues, PRs, etc. That comes with the territory. Unfortunately, the ease and carelessness by which these are now manifested has increased the "bad" count by 10x if not more. It's ruining it for the rest of us. This policy is a result of the bad, and I'm sorry about it.

Going forward, AI generated contributions will only be allowed for accepted issues and maintainers. Drive-by pull requests with AI generated content will be immediately closed.

Going further, users who contribute bad AI generated content will be immediately banned from all future contributions. This is a zero-tolerance policy. If you use AI, you are responsible for the quality of your contributions. If you're using low-effort AI to create low-effort content, I have no human obligation to help you.

If you are a junior developer who is really trying to learn and get better, then please put aside the AI, do your best, and I will still help. I want to help. But I expect effort and organic thinking in return.

Important

This is not an anti-AI stance. This is an anti-idiot stance. Ghostty is written with plenty of AI assistance and many of our maintainers use AI daily. We just want quality contributions, regardless of how they are made.

@mitchellh mitchellh added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label Jan 22, 2026
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LGTM

Follow up to #8289

The rise of agentic programming has eliminated the natural effort-based
backpressure that previously limited low-effort contributions. It is 
now too easy to create large amounts of bad content with minimal effort.

Open source projects have always had poor quality issues, PRs, etc. That 
comes with the territory. Unfortunately, the ease and carelessness by which 
these are now manifested has increased the "bad" count by 10x if not more. 
It's ruining it for the rest of us. This policy is a result of the bad, and 
I'm sorry about it.

**Going forward, AI generated contributions will only be allowed for
accepted issues and maintainers.** Drive-by pull requests with AI generated 
content will be immediately closed. 

**Going further, users who contribute bad AI generated content will be
immediately banned from all future contributions.** This is a zero-tolerance 
policy. If you use AI, you are responsible for the quality of your 
contributions. If you're using low-effort AI to create low-effort content, 
I have no human obligation to help you. 

If you are a junior developer who is really trying to learn and get
better, then please put aside the AI, do your best, and I will still
help. I want to help. But I expect effort and organic thinking in return.

This is not an anti-AI stance. This is an anti-idiot stance. Ghostty is
written with plenty of AI assistance and many of our maintainers use
AI daily. We just want quality contributions, regardless of how they are
made.
@nexxai
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nexxai commented Jan 22, 2026

In the updated policy, you say that the "tool" used must be disclosed, but it feels like requiring the model might be more helpful, since tools like Opencode can interface with multiple models? Thoughts?

@mitchellh
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mitchellh commented Jan 22, 2026

In the updated policy, you say that the "tool" used must be disclosed, but it feels like requiring the model might be more helpful, since tools like Opencode can interface with multiple models? Thoughts?

No, it's more important to me to know that AI was used. I don't particularly care what model. In the future, once there is more broad support, I plan on requiring full transcripts for any AI assistance that we can map 1:1 to the diff. But there isn't broad enough tool support for that yet.

@mitchellh mitchellh merged commit ef19290 into main Jan 22, 2026
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@mitchellh mitchellh deleted the push-tzozpqpwqmmz branch January 22, 2026 21:08
@mitchellh mitchellh added this to the 1.3.0 milestone Jan 22, 2026
@AlexJuca
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This is the way to go! 🔥

@cardil
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cardil commented Jan 23, 2026

IMHO good policy, but too long.

Most of it doesn't benefit the LLM agent but bloats the context.

@trag1c
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trag1c commented Jan 23, 2026

IMHO good policy, but too long.

Most of it doesn't benefit the LLM agent but bloats the context.

It's for humans to read :)

@ghostty-org ghostty-org locked and limited conversation to collaborators Jan 23, 2026
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8 participants