[PATCH v2] checkpatch: add support for Assisted-by tag

From: Sasha Levin

Date: Wed Mar 11 2026 - 17:59:18 EST


The Assisted-by tag was introduced in
Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst for attributing AI tool
contributions to kernel patches. However, checkpatch.pl did not
recognize this tag, causing two issues:

WARNING: Non-standard signature: Assisted-by:
ERROR: Unrecognized email address: 'AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION'

Fix this by:
1. Adding Assisted-by to the recognized $signature_tags list
2. Skipping email validation for Assisted-by lines since they use the
AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION format instead of an email address
3. Warning when the Assisted-by value doesn't match the expected format

Reported-by: Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@xxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes from v1:
- Use next instead of wrapping the email validation block in an else
clause, as suggested by Joe Perches.

scripts/checkpatch.pl | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)

diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index e56374662ff79..27a43a4d9c438 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -641,6 +641,7 @@ our $signature_tags = qr{(?xi:
Reviewed-by:|
Reported-by:|
Suggested-by:|
+ Assisted-by:|
To:|
Cc:
)};
@@ -3105,6 +3106,15 @@ sub process {
}
}

+ # Assisted-by uses AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION format, not email
+ if ($sign_off =~ /^Assisted-by:/i) {
+ if ($email !~ /^\S+:\S+/) {
+ WARN("BAD_SIGN_OFF",
+ "Assisted-by expects 'AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION [TOOL1] [TOOL2]' format\n" . $herecurr);
+ }
+ next;
+ }
+
my ($email_name, $name_comment, $email_address, $comment) = parse_email($email);
my $suggested_email = format_email(($email_name, $name_comment, $email_address, $comment));
if ($suggested_email eq "") {
--
2.51.0