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Add AI policy#1109

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add-ai-policy
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Add AI policy#1109
NeffIsBack wants to merge 4 commits intomainfrom
add-ai-policy

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@NeffIsBack NeffIsBack commented Feb 16, 2026

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Unfortunately, due to the increase of low effort AI contributions, we are at a point where we have to implement an AI policy.
@mitchellh pretty much perfectly phrased it in this Pull Request: ghostty-org/ghostty#10412

The rise of agentic programming has eliminated the natural effort-based backpressure that previously limited low-effort contributions. It is now too easy to create large amounts of bad content with minimal effort.

Open source projects have always had poor quality issues, PRs, etc. That comes with the territory. Unfortunately, the ease and carelessness by which these are now manifested has increased the "bad" count by 10x if not more. It's ruining it for the rest of us. This policy is a result of the bad, and I'm sorry about it.

Going forward, AI generated contributions will only be allowed for accepted issues and maintainers. Drive-by pull requests with AI generated content will be immediately closed.

Going further, users who contribute bad AI generated content will be immediately banned from all future contributions. This is a zero-tolerance policy. If you use AI, you are responsible for the quality of your contributions. If you're using low-effort AI to create low-effort content, I have no human obligation to help you.

If you are a junior developer who is really trying to learn and get better, then please put aside the AI, do your best, and I will still help. I want to help. But I expect effort and organic thinking in return.

Important:
This is not an anti-AI stance. This is an anti-idiot stance. Ghostty is written with plenty of AI assistance and many of our maintainers use AI daily. We just want quality contributions, regardless of how they are made.

As a solution we adapt this policy as well with this PR.

@NeffIsBack NeffIsBack added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label Feb 16, 2026
Please include a summary of the change and which issue is fixed, or what the enhancement does.
List any dependencies that are required for this change.

If you have used AI in any form, please state the tool you used (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, Amp) along with the extent that the work was AI-assisted. See the project's AI policy for more details: https://github.com/Pennyw0rth/NetExec/blob/main/AI_POLICY.md
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Should we say tools & models used?

The NetExec project has strict rules for AI usage:

- **All AI usage in any form must be disclosed.** You must state
the tool you used (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, Amp) along with
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Same here, tools and models?

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
# AI Usage Policy

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Can we include a link to Ghostty's policy as a source since we've copied theirs as a base.

Text and code are the only acceptable AI-generated content, per the
other rules in this policy.

- **Bad AI drivers will be banned and ridiculed in public.** You've
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I think we should provide a single warning and then ban. We can always change this in the future, but I'm a fan of being a bit more lenient right now. Ghostty has gotten a lot more slop than us, so I understand why they are being more strict, but I don't think we need that right now.

the people get better, the AI gets better, or both, we have to have
strict rules to protect maintainers.

## AI is Welcome Here
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I'm not sure I'm as pro-AI as the Ghostty group. Not sure about other maintainers but I'd prefer to word this a little less supportive and more cautious. AI is definitely useful and I use it in a lot of places, but it fails miserably at advanced stuff and can be very unreliable.


**Our reason for the strict AI policy is not due to an anti-AI stance**, but
instead due to the number of highly unqualified people using AI. It's the
people, not the tools, that are the problem.
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I think a lot of the tools are the problem as well.

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@Marshall-Hallenbeck Marshall-Hallenbeck left a comment

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Submitted my general ideas and feedback. Overall I think we should be more lenient to people (give them one warning and refer to our policy), and also update some wording because I just don't trust AI tooling for a lot of things, especially niche areas like what we do with NetExec.

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