Linux kernel
The kernel at the heart of every Linux system.
Mostly friendly. Welcome, with extra rules.
AI-assisted patches are accepted when the AI use is tagged with Assisted-by and a human reviews the work, signs off and takes full responsibility. AI agents may not sign off or send anything on their own.
Policy by area
- Code contributionsPatches, pull requests and other changes written with AI tools.
- Mostly friendly
- AI use must be disclosed
- Contributor takes full responsibility
- A human must review the output
- Output must be license-compatible
- No autonomous agents
- Issues & bug reportsBug reports, security reports and issues found or written with AI tools.
- Mostly friendly
- AI use must be disclosed
- A human must review the output
- No autonomous agents
- AI-written textPull request descriptions, issue comments and summaries written by AI.
- Mostly friendly
- AI use must be disclosed
In their own words
Code contributions
AI agents MUST NOT add Signed-off-by tags. Only humans can legally certify the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO).
Contributions should include an Assisted-by tag in the following format:
Issues & bug reports
if a tool was used to find a problem addressed by a change, that should be noted in the changelog.
leave the result to the reporter for review (the assistant must never send anything itself)
AI-written text
be transparent about the origin of content in cover letters and changelogs.
The changelog was generated by handing the patch to a generative AI tool and asking it to write the changelog.
Sources
- AI Coding Assistants — The Linux Kernel documentationdocs.kernel.org/process/coding-assistants.htmlSnapshot 9 Oct 2026
- Kernel Guidelines for Tool-Generated Content — The Linux Kernel documentationdocs.kernel.org/process/generated-content.htmlSnapshot 9 Oct 2026