This proposal’s blanket ban on substantial AI-generated code is completely out of touch with how modern embedded development actually works, and would set NuttX back at a time every other major project is moving forward.
The Linux kernel — the most rigorously maintained upstream project on the planet — does not ban AI-drafted code. It accepts patches built with AI assistance all day long, so long as they meet the exact same quality, licensing and correctness standards as hand-written code, and the submitter owns every line end to end. If it’s good enough for Linux, it’s good enough for NuttX. We gain nothing by being more puritanical than the kernel community. Inside the Vela project, the vast majority of day-to-day coding work uses AI tooling as a core part of the workflow — not just autocomplete or regex tweaks, but writing full driver stubs, implementing utility layers, refactoring subsystems, and prototyping core logic. It cuts weeks of boilerplate drudgery down to days. Burying our heads in the sand and banning it on paper won’t make it go away — it will just push it underground, with zero disclosure and zero accountability. Here’s the only hard line that actually matters, and it’s the one part of your proposal that is fully correct: **Every single PR must be reviewed and approved by a human maintainer before merge, no exceptions.** And the human who submits the code **must fully understand every single line** — the logic, the side effects, the error handling, how it fits into NuttX’s architecture and coding conventions. AI is a tool, nothing more. The submitter is 100% on the hook for the code they push, period. Banning “substantial AI-generated code” is a meaningless, unenforceable distraction. Is 30% substantial? 60%? Who’s going to forensically audit every PR to guess what percentage was drafted by AI? It’s the wrong fight entirely. The real problem isn’t AI — it’s people dumping half-baked AI-generated garbage they don’t even understand into PRs and wasting volunteer maintainers’ time. That’s the behavior we need to police, not the tool they used to write it. So scrap the arbitrary “no substantial AI code” rule. Keep the bans on fully autonomous agents and AI-generated PR descriptions/comments — those are no-brainers, and straight-up disrespectful to people donating their time to review. Replace the code-generation rule with two non-negotiable requirements: full disclosure of AI usage in the PR thread, and full personal accountability from the submitter for every line. Keep mandatory human review as the final, non-negotiable gate. Tomek CEDRO <[email protected]> 于2026年7月2日周四 01:06写道： > +1 :-) > > -- > CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2026, 17:47 Matteo Golin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hello everyone, > > > > NuttX still has not adopted an AI policy, and the number of substantially > > AI-generated contributions is continuing to grow. Recently, the Godot > > project adopted a new AI policy which I think is quite reasonable. [1] > > > > I would like to suggest that NuttX adopt the AI policy from Godot [1] > > (slightly modified for more clarity), as follows, and include it in our > > contribution guide: > > > > - *No autonomous AI agent use or vibe coding* > > > > - A human must be involved in the coding process if patches are > > submitted > > > > - *No use of AI to generate substantial pieces of code* > > > > - We require all code to be human authored. AI assistance should be > > limited to menial things (like code completion, regex, formatting, or > > find > > and replace). > > - If you do use AI in some capacity to author code, you must disclose > it > > in the PR discussion. > > > > - *No AI-generated text in human-to-human communication* > > > > - When our maintainers volunteer their time to review your issue, PR, > or > > proposal, they do not want to talk to a machine. This is a basic > > principle > > of respect. > > - Machine translations are still acceptable as long as the original > > content was written by a human. > > - This includes PR descriptions and comments. > > > > - *All PRs must be reviewed and approved by a human before merging* > > Please let me know your thoughts, I really think it is time to adopt this > > change as I am seeing more and more frequently that substantially > > AI-generated PRs are submitted (what is really most frustrating is its > use > > in human-to-human communication). > > > > Best, > > Matteo > > > > [1]: https://godotengine.org/article/contribution-policy-2026/ > > >
