Re: [PATCH] docs: add AGENTS.md as a symlink to README

[Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 04:08:08PM +0100, Bradley Morgan wrote:
>On 24 September 2026 14:49:45 BST, Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> wrote:
>>Most coding agents have standardized on AGENTS.md as the file they load
>>automatically from the root of a repository. README already tells AI
>>tools to read and follow Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst,
>>but that only helps if the agent decides to read README before acting,
>>which in practice it often doesn't.
>>
>>Add a top-level AGENTS.md symlink to README, so agents load it on their
>>own and follow its pointer to the AI guidelines. This keeps a single
>>entry point for every reader, and avoids adding a separate copy of the
>>policy that could drift from the RST.
>>
>>As an example, two different agents were asked to "create a new commit
>>renaming the release (in the Makefile) to AI Test".
>>
>>Without AGENTS.md, the first agent added a Signed-off-by for the user on
>>its own. It should never have done that: only the human submitter can
>>certify the Developer Certificate of Origin, after reviewing the change.
>>It also used its own attribution tag instead of Assisted-by:
>>
>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test
>>>
>>> Co-Authored-By: <model name> <noreply@...>
>>> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
>>
>>The second agent added no attribution at all:
>>
>>> Rename release to AI Test
>>
>>With AGENTS.md in place, neither agent added a Signed-off-by, and both
>>used the Assisted-by tag. README itself mentions neither tag, so both
>>agents followed its pointer to coding-assistants.rst:
>>
>>> Makefile: rename release to "AI Test"
>>>
>>> Change the release name from "Baby Opossum Posse" to "AI Test".
>>>
>>> Assisted-by: LLM
>>
>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test
>>>
>>> Assisted-by: LLM
>>
>>Both agents also followed the kernel's general guidelines more closely.
>>The second agent's subject gained the "subsystem: summary phrase" form
>>that submitting-patches.rst asks for, instead of a bare "Rename release
>>to AI Test", and the first agent added a body describing the change.
>>
>>Assisted-by: LLM
>>Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
>
>NAK, we could add to memories that to read soandso file before every
>patch, and then it wouldn't increase tokens then?

Could you help me understand what you meant here? I'm aware some agents use a
notion of "memories", but I don't think they standardized on it in any way, nor
how we could incorporate them here?

And as far as I'm aware, nothing is free here - those "memories" still use
tokens.

-- 
Thanks,
Sasha