Bookmark of Kubernetes AI Contribution Policy

The Kubernetes Steering Committee just published an updated policy on AI tool usage for contributors. These lines stand out:

Using AI tools to help write your PR is acceptable, but as the author, you are responsible for understanding every change. If you used AI tools in preparing your PR, you must disclose this in the description of your PR.

All contributions must follow the contributions policies and use commit messages that align with the policy. Large AI-generated PRs and AI-generated commit messages are not allowed.

Do not leave the first review of AI generated changes to the reviewers. Verify the changes (code review, testing, etc.) before submitting your PR. Reviewers may ask questions about your AI-assisted code, and if you cannot explain why a change was made, the PR will be closed.

When responding to review comments, you must do so without relying on AI tools. Reviewers want to engage directly with you, not with generated responses. If you do not engage directly with reviewers, the PR will be closed.

This is the right stance. AI is a tool, not an author. You are still the one submitting the code, so you are still the one who needs to understand it, explain it, and defend it in review. If you cannot do that, the PR gets closed.

The policy also bans AI co-author and assisted-by commit trailers, partly because an AI cannot sign a CLA, and partly to prevent companies from using merged PRs as marketing for their tools. Both are practical, real problems that other projects will eventually have to deal with too.

Every open source project should be thinking about this.