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State a contribution policy for agent-generated pull requests - #433

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@tylervick

@tylervick tylervick commented Aug 11, 2026

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What this changes

Adds an AI-assisted contributions section to CONTRIBUTING.md and a pull request template that asks for verification and AI disclosure up front.

Why

Three of the five open PRs from non-maintainers are from accounts running automated contribution farms:

PR Account PRs authored on GitHub
#432 mvanhorn ~4,350
#429 floze-the-genius ~315, nearly all on one day
#420 sunnnn2005 9, others to agent-playground repos

They are not the classic spam shape. The diffs are coherent, tested, lint-clean, and target real open issues — #387 and #389 are mine, #364 is a genuine user's. That is what makes them expensive: none can be dismissed without a full read.

The policy is deliberately not an AI ban. Most recent work here is agent-assisted, so a ban would be both hypocritical and wrong. It draws the line at accountability and consent instead: disclose the tool, run the suite, be able to explain the diff, and don't open patches nobody asked for.

Paired with a repo setting change (not in this diff): fork PR workflows now require approval for all external contributors rather than only first-time ones, so unreviewed PRs no longer consume Actions minutes on the >10min fixture pipeline.

How you verified it

Docs only — no code paths touched. Rendered headings and the new #ai-assisted-contributions anchor match the Topics list.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • Documentation
    • Added contribution guidance for responsible AI-assisted work, including disclosure, verification, and quality expectations.
    • Added a recommendation to discuss proposed changes on an open issue before starting.
  • Chores
    • Added a pull request template covering change descriptions, testing, AI assistance, and diff review.

The repo is receiving pull requests from accounts that open hundreds to
thousands of them across unrelated projects in a day. The diffs are
coherent and target real open issues, so they cannot be dismissed on
sight — each one costs a full review.

Say plainly what the bar is. AI assistance is fine and disclosed; code
the author has not read or run is not; unsolicited volume submissions
are closed without review. Add a pull request template that asks for
verification and disclosure up front.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
@coderabbitai

coderabbitai Bot commented Aug 11, 2026

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Review Change Stack

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The changes add a pull request template and update contribution guidance. The documentation now covers verification, Swift tests, AI assistance disclosure, diff review, issue assignment, contribution quality, and automated submission rejection.

Changes

Contribution Guidance

Layer / File(s) Summary
Pull request submission template
.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
Adds fields for change descriptions, verification details, Swift test confirmation, AI assistance disclosure, and diff review confirmation.
Contribution and AI-assistance policy
CONTRIBUTING.md
Adds issue assignment guidance and requirements for disclosing, testing, reviewing, and justifying AI-assisted patches.

Estimated code review effort: 1 (Trivial) | ~5 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5
✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
Check name Status Explanation
Description Check ✅ Passed Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check ✅ Passed The title clearly summarizes the main change: documenting a contribution policy for agent-generated pull requests.
Docstring Coverage ✅ Passed No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
✨ Finishing Touches
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
  • Create PR with unit tests
  • Commit unit tests in branch tylervick/contribution-policy

Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.

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Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@CONTRIBUTING.md`:
- Around line 41-43: Update the open-issue guidance in CONTRIBUTING.md to remove
the claim that commenting guarantees the work will be read. Replace it with
wording that explains commenting allows planned work to be tracked, while
preserving the instruction to comment before taking an issue.
🪄 Autofix

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

  • Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
  • Create a new PR with the fixes

ℹ️ Review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: a9263668-ef66-485e-9736-e4b2296ee213

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f717a1d and b255a2e.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)
  • .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
  • CONTRIBUTING.md

Comment thread CONTRIBUTING.md
Comment on lines +41 to +43
If you want to take an open issue, comment on it first and I will assign it to
you. That costs you one line and guarantees your work gets read.

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📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🟡 Minor | ⚡ Quick win

Remove the guarantee of review.

guarantees your work gets read is not under the repository’s control. It also conflicts with Lines 101-104, which state that some pull requests are closed without review. Replace the guarantee with a statement about tracking planned work.

Proposed wording
-That costs you one line and guarantees your work gets read.
+That helps maintainers track planned work before you start.
📝 Committable suggestion

‼️ IMPORTANT
Carefully review the code before committing. Ensure that it accurately replaces the highlighted code, contains no missing lines, and has no issues with indentation. Thoroughly test & benchmark the code to ensure it meets the requirements.

Suggested change
If you want to take an open issue, comment on it first and I will assign it to
you. That costs you one line and guarantees your work gets read.
If you want to take an open issue, comment on it first and I will assign it to
you. That costs you one line and helps maintainers track planned work before you start.
🤖 Prompt for AI Agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@CONTRIBUTING.md` around lines 41 - 43, Update the open-issue guidance in
CONTRIBUTING.md to remove the claim that commenting guarantees the work will be
read. Replace it with wording that explains commenting allows planned work to be
tracked, while preserving the instruction to comment before taking an issue.

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