Documentation: Provide guidelines for tool-generated content

In the last few years, the capabilities of coding tools have exploded.
As those capabilities have expanded, contributors and maintainers have
more and more questions about how and when to apply those
capabilities.

Add new Documentation to guide contributors on how to best use kernel
development tools, new and old.

Note, though, there are fundamentally no new or unique rules in this
new document. It clarifies expectations that the kernel community has
had for many years. For example, researchers are already asked to
disclose the tools they use to find issues by
Documentation/process/researcher-guidelines.rst. This new document
just reiterates existing best practices for development tooling.

In short: Please show your work and make sure your contribution is
easy to review.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: SeongJae Park <sj@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Reviewed-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Simon Glass <simon.glass@canonical.com>
Reviewed-by: Lee Jones <lee@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>
Cc: NeilBrown <neilb@ownmail.net>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>
Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: workflows@vger.kernel.org
Cc: ksummit@lists.linux.dev
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/cfb8bb96-e798-474d-bc6f-9cf610fe720f@lucifer.local/

--

Changes from v5:
 * Add more review tags
 * Add a blurb to the "special" asks bullet to mention that extra
   testing may be requested.
 * Reword the closing paragraph of "Out of Scope" section for clarity
 * Remove an "AI" and make small wording tweak (Jon)

Changes from v4:
 * Modest tweaking and rewording to strengthen language
 * Add a section to help alleviate concerns that the document would
   not enable maintainers to act forcefully enough in the face of
   high-volume low-quality contributions (aka. AI slop).
   This is very close to some text that Lorenzo posted. I just
   made some very minor wording tweaks and spelling fixes.
 * Note: v4 mistakenly had "v3" in the subject

Changes from v3:
 * Wording/formatting tweaks (Randy)

Changes from v2:
 * Mention testing (Shuah)
 * Remove "very", rename LLM => coding assistant (Dan)
 * More formatting sprucing up and minor typos (Miguel)
 * Make changelog and text less flashy (Christian)
 * Tone down critical=>helpful (Neil)

Changes from v1:
 * Rename to generated-content.rst and add to documentation index.
   (Jon)
 * Rework subject to align with the new filename
 * Replace commercial names with generic ones. (Jon)
 * Be consistent about punctuation at the end of bullets for whole
   sentences. (Miguel)
 * Formatting sprucing up and minor typos (Miguel)

This document was a collaborative effort from all the members of
the TAB. I just reformatted it into .rst and wrote the changelog.

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Message-ID: <20260119200418.89541-1-dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>

Author: hansendc

Documentation/process/generated-content.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+============================================
+Kernel Guidelines for Tool-Generated Content
+============================================
+
+Purpose
+=======
+
+Kernel contributors have been using tooling to generate contributions
+for a long time. These tools can increase the volume of contributions.
+At the same time, reviewer and maintainer bandwidth is a scarce
+resource. Understanding which portions of a contribution come from
+humans versus tools is helpful to maintain those resources and keep
+kernel development healthy.
+
+The goal here is to clarify community expectations around tools. This
+lets everyone become more productive while also maintaining high
+degrees of trust between submitters and reviewers.
+
+Out of Scope
+============
+
+These guidelines do not apply to tools that make trivial tweaks to
+preexisting content. Nor do they pertain to tooling that helps with
+menial tasks. Some examples:
+
+ - Spelling and grammar fix ups, like rephrasing to imperative voice
+ - Typing aids like identifier completion, common boilerplate or
+   trivial pattern completion
+ - Purely mechanical transformations like variable renaming
+ - Reformatting, like running Lindent, ``clang-format`` or
+   ``rust-fmt``
+
+Even whenever your tool use is out of scope, you should still always
+consider if it would help reviewing your contribution if the reviewer
+knows about the tool that you used.
+
+In Scope
+========
+
+These guidelines apply when a meaningful amount of content in a kernel
+contribution was not written by a person in the Signed-off-by chain,
+but was instead created by a tool.
+
+Detection of a problem and testing the fix for it is also part of the
+development process; if a tool was used to find a problem addressed by
+a change, that should be noted in the changelog. This not only gives
+credit where it is due, it also helps fellow developers find out about
+these tools.
+
+Some examples:
+ - Any tool-suggested fix such as ``checkpatch.pl --fix``
+ - Coccinelle scripts
+ - A chatbot generated a new function in your patch to sort list entries.
+ - A .c file in the patch was originally generated by a coding
+   assistant but cleaned up by hand.
+ - The changelog was generated by handing the patch to a generative AI
+   tool and asking it to write the changelog.
+ - The changelog was translated from another language.
+
+If in doubt, choose transparency and assume these guidelines apply to
+your contribution.
+
+Guidelines
+==========
+
+First, read the Developer's Certificate of Origin:
+Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst. Its rules are simple
+and have been in place for a long time. They have covered many
+tool-generated contributions. Ensure that you understand your entire
+submission and are prepared to respond to review comments.
+
+Second, when making a contribution, be transparent about the origin of
+content in cover letters and changelogs. You can be more transparent
+by adding information like this:
+
+ - What tools were used?
+ - The input to the tools you used, like the Coccinelle source script.
+ - If code was largely generated from a single or short set of
+   prompts, include those prompts. For longer sessions, include a
+   summary of the prompts and the nature of resulting assistance.
+ - Which portions of the content were affected by that tool?
+ - How is the submission tested and what tools were used to test the
+   fix?
+
+As with all contributions, individual maintainers have discretion to
+choose how they handle the contribution. For example, they might:
+
+ - Treat it just like any other contribution.
+ - Reject it outright.
+ - Treat the contribution specially, for example, asking for extra
+   testing, reviewing with extra scrutiny, or reviewing at a lower
+   priority than human-generated content.
+ - Ask for some other special steps, like asking the contributor to
+   elaborate on how the tool or model was trained.
+ - Ask the submitter to explain in more detail about the contribution
+   so that the maintainer can be assured that the submitter fully
+   understands how the code works.
+ - Suggest a better prompt instead of suggesting specific code changes.
+
+If tools permit you to generate a contribution automatically, expect
+additional scrutiny in proportion to how much of it was generated.
+
+As with the output of any tooling, the result may be incorrect or
+inappropriate. You are expected to understand and to be able to defend
+everything you submit. If you are unable to do so, then do not submit
+the resulting changes.
+
+If you do so anyway, maintainers are entitled to reject your series
+without detailed review.

Documentation/process/index.rst

@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ beyond).
    stable-kernel-rules
    management-style
    researcher-guidelines
+   generated-content
    coding-assistants
 
 Dealing with bugs