linux-kernel - Re: [RFC 1/2] AI: Add unified AI coding assistant configuration

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Message-ID: <aIQEZZt7rlzeMDSe@lappy>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 18:25:41 -0400
From: Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>
To: Kees Cook <kees@...nel.org>
Cc: workflows@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, rostedt@...dmis.org,
	konstantin@...uxfoundation.org, corbet@....net,
	josh@...htriplett.org
Subject: Re: [RFC 1/2] AI: Add unified AI coding assistant configuration

On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 01:40:55PM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
>On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 01:53:57PM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote:
>> Create a single source of truth for AI instructions in
>> Documentation/AI/main.md with symlinks for all major AI coding
>> assistants:
>> - CLAUDE.md (Claude Code)
>> - .github/copilot-instructions.md (GitHub Copilot)
>> - .cursorrules (Cursor)
>> - .codeium/instructions.md (Codeium)
>> - .continue/context.md (Continue)
>> - .windsurfrules (Windsurf)
>> - Documentation/AIder.conf.yml (Aider)
>
>I do like the idea of having a standard baseline for agentic
>development, but:
>
>- This clobbers per-project information storage for the agents, which
>  the dev may want to be adjusting locally. I would strongly prefer
>  adding all of those files to .gitignore instead.

It will, but:

1. We don't have a different place to write this down (more below).
2. Users have other places they can add their specific instructions, or
they can even carry patches on top.

>- Documentation/ should not start getting filled with stuff to be
>  exclusively consumed by agents. Instead, I recommend a top-level
>  .md file that agents can discover that contains very simple
>  non-specific prompts about what they can find in Documentation/,
>  and drop a reference to the file in, say, Makefile to be discovered
>  during the agent's scrape of the project.
>
>I'd recommend something very simple like:
>
>diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
>index e05bd43f93bd..998b037e6d4d 100644
>--- a/Makefile
>+++ b/Makefile
>@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ NAME = Baby Opossum Posse
>
> # *DOCUMENTATION*
> # To see a list of typical targets execute "make help"
>+# AI agents and LLMs should read ./AGENTS.md
> # More info can be located in ./README
> # Comments in this file are targeted only to the developer, do not
> # expect to learn how to build the kernel reading this file.
>diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
>new file mode 100644
>index 000000000000..3df98f0cc667
>--- /dev/null
>+++ b/AGENTS.md
>@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
>+To work on the Linux kernel, please see Makefile for details on how to
>+perform builds and testing. Find and read the Submitting Patches and
>+Coding Style rules in Documentation/.

I've removed CLAUDE.md, and applied the following change on top of this
RFC patchset with Claude:

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index be33e8c868ae2..e3986eae88e08 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ NAME = Baby Opossum Posse

  # *DOCUMENTATION*
  # To see a list of typical targets execute "make help"
+# AI agents and LLMs should read ./Documentation/AI/main.md
  # More info can be located in ./README
  # Comments in this file are targeted only to the developer, do not
  # expect to learn how to build the kernel reading this file.

... which Claude (and I suspect most other other agents) proceeds to
ignore as it doesn't really do any scraping outside of those dedicated
files:

	$ claude -p "do you need to attribute your commits?"
	No, I don't need to attribute commits myself. When creating commits, I follow the format specified in my instructions:

	```
	🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code)

	Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@...hropic.com>
	```

	This attribution is automatically added to commit messages when I create commits for you

-- 
Thanks,
Sasha