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

[Bradley Morgan]

On 24 September 2026 14:49:45 BST, Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx> 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@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
>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@xxxxxxxxxx>

NAK, we could add to memories that to read soandso file before every
patch, and then it wouldn't increase tokens then?

>---
> AGENTS.md | 1 +
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> create mode 120000 AGENTS.md
>
>diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
>new file mode 120000
>index 0000000000000..100b93820ade4
>--- /dev/null
>+++ b/AGENTS.md
>@@ -0,0 +1 @@
>+README
>\ No newline at end of file
>

--- Thanks!
"I'm not a very positive person" - Linus torvalds