2.2 KiB
name: commit-trailers
description: Commit message trailers for AI-assisted work — use when writing or reviewing a git commit message (or PR description) whose content was substantially generated by an AI tool; requires a Generated-by: <Tool> <Version> trailer per the ASF Generative Tooling Guidance.
Commit trailers for AI-assisted work
Commits in this workspace whose content was substantially generated by an AI tool must disclose the tooling in the commit message, per the ASF Generative Tooling Guidance:
Generated-by: <Tool> <Version>
- Use this token whenever the content is substantially machine-generated (not for a typo fix the human typed).
- The ASF guidance also accepts the alternative form
Co-authored-by: <Tool> <Version>;Generated-by:is preferred here for machine-parsable provenance. - The human commit author remains responsible for the contribution: the contributor is responsible for disclosing material that is not their original creation, and for ensuring the tool's terms grant rights sufficient to license the output (ICLA, sections 4-5, 7-8).
Precedent in this workspace: ocap-merkledag commit 68ffcca ("Add high-level design doc for deploying on Cloudflare.").
Rationale
The Apache-2.0 license and the ICLA both require
contributors to disclose material in a contribution that is not the
contributor's original creation. Section 7 of the ICLA (third-party
work) is not a practical route for AI output, because the source
details are not knowable; a Generated-by: token in the commit
message is the ASF's recommended disclosure practice,
and keeps the record honest about what the signing contributor is and
is not claiming to own. This tracks the U.S. Copyright Office's finding
that purely machine-generated output is not copyrightable
(Part 2: Copyrightability report, 2025).