# GDAL: Not AI-friendly

> LLMs may only be used as improved autocompletion or for mechanical refactoring; humans must be the primary authors. Vibe-coded contributions and agent submissions are banned, and any LLM use in code, tickets or commit messages must be labelled.

- What it is: A translator library for raster and vector geospatial data formats. (Library)
- Homepage: https://gdal.org/
- Repository: https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal
- Overall stance: Not AI-friendly (Unfriendly). AI-generated contributions are not accepted; at most minor help such as autocomplete or grammar fixes.
- Last classified: 2026-10-09 (manual review, high confidence)
- Policy last changed: 2026-10-09
- Web page: https://areweaifriendly.com/projects/gdal/

## Policy by area

- **Code contributions**: Not AI-friendly (AI use must be disclosed; Contributor takes full responsibility; Only minor help (autocomplete, grammar); No autonomous agents)
- **Issues & bug reports**: AI-friendly with conditions (AI use must be disclosed; Contributor takes full responsibility)
- **AI-written text**: AI-friendly with conditions (AI use must be disclosed; Contributor takes full responsibility)

## In their own words

- Code contributions: "LLMs may only be used as an improved auto-completion mechanism, or for repeated tasks (mechanical refactoring) that could potentially be completed with a deterministic algorithm." (https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html)
- Code contributions: "Submission of vibe-coded contributions is banned." (https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html)
- Code contributions: "Human-coordinated or uncoordinated (OpenClaw, etc) use of agents for submission of contributions to the GDAL repository is banned." (https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html)
- Issues & bug reports: "Any LLM usage must be indicated by ticket label, comment, or commit message indication and account for what was written by whom/what." (https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html)
- AI-written text: "All contributions including code, ticket comments, and commit messages should be fully understood by the author(s) submitting them to the project." (https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html)

## Sources

- [GDAL LLM tool policy](https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html), fetched 2026-10-09