Assisted-by tag
2 messages between Jun 16, 2026 and Jun 16, 2026, from Marius Spix, Kristoffer Haugsbakk.
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Hi there,
as the Linux kernel requires the new Assisted-by tag for AI-assisted commits, I was researching how git handles such tags. Thereby I observed the following behaviour:
git commit --signoff
* adds an empty line before the Signed-off-by tag
* ignores the Signed-off-by tag by checking for an empty commit message
git commit --trailer "\nAssisted-by: OpenAI"
* does not add an empty line (the "\n" is not converted to a newline)
* does not ignore the tag by checking for empty commit message
Since there will be more and more AI-assisted commits in projects like the Linux kernel in the future, this should be taken in account.
When merging or squashing commits, that tag should also be automatically applied to the new commit message to make it clear that the commit is tainted by AI.
Your opinion?
Best regards
Marius
Re: Assisted-by tag
On Tue, Jun 16, 2026, at 21:25, Marius Spix wrote:
Show 7 quoted lines
> as the Linux kernel requires the new Assisted-by tag for AI-assisted
> commits, I was researching how git handles such tags. Thereby I
> observed the following behaviour:
>
> git commit --signoff
> * adds an empty line before the Signed-off-by tag
> * ignores the Signed-off-by tag by checking for an empty commit message
That a bare message which is just `Signed-off-by` is considered an “empty” commit message seems like a historical quirk. It checks specifically for that tag/trailer.
>
> git commit --trailer "\nAssisted-by: OpenAI"
> * does not add an empty line (the "\n" is not converted to a newline)
> * does not ignore the tag by checking for empty commit message
This is just a regular trailer. I don’t know why you have a `\n`.
git commit --trailer "Assisted-by: OpenAI"
Any number of these will populate the trailer block.
Show 6 quoted lines
> Since there will be more and more AI-assisted commits in projects like
> the Linux kernel in the future, this should be taken in account.
>
> When merging or squashing commits, that tag should also be
> automatically applied to the new commit message to make it clear that
> the commit is tainted by AI.
That `Signed-off-by` has dedicated options and logic is historical baggage at this point.
A 2013 [patch] to add `git commit --fixes` because the Linux Kernel uses `Fixes` was rejected because the Git project considers tags/trailers project-specific. Instead git-interpret-trailers(1) was born which eventually provided the code base for `git commit --trailer` and similar options.
[patch]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20131027013402.GA7146@leaf/
Handling how trailers are added is also deemed project-specific. There are only the configurations and options that git-interpret-trailers(1) provides. And handling that commits are rewritten (combined and so on) in such a way that trailer-taint sticks is beyond any discussion I’ve seen on the subject.