Changes to our Contribution Policies
Godot is growing fast, so here is how we are dealing with the huge increase in contributions.
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Godot continues to gain my respect at the same rate other engines lose it
This is one of the most important points I think anyone has made in respect to AI code contributions to date;
inc. rant
I'm experiencing this more and more at my work and it's really demoralizing. I've always been thorough with juniors when it comes to reviewing tickets/improvements/bug fixes/etc. I quite enjoy explaining things and seeing that lightbulb turning on moment.
Had some recent experiences with one where it felt like everything I was saying was just kind of going in one ear and out the other. I'd have them try and repeat things back to me to gauge understanding and they would struggle there, which is fine you don't have to get it right away.
But then I'll leave them to their devices for a bit to do some self-investigation, maybe we catch back up at the EoD to go over any new tidbits of info they gleaned, and instead they would come back to me in no later than an hour with a fully finished PR, very obviously heavily if not completely made with an LLM based purely off my feedback from earlier. They made syntactical decisions that they couldn't explain what they were doing, etc.
Not to sound too doomer and jaded, but stuff like that really just takes the wind out of my sails and less likely to want to spend time trying to educate others. I really hope this has just been a series of unlucky one-offs and not a sign of things to come
I can just about understand why someone would try to vibe-code a contribution they then submit themselves - dumb, but if you're new to open-source or programming in general you might not understand why.
But who are these jabronis who are just pointing AI agents at open source things and telling them to do the whole damn thing on their own? Who is this for? What possible benefit is there? Are they just trying to break things? Is it about bragging rights? (Why would anyone brag about what an AI did for them?) Are they stupid? Are they so stupid that they think the maintainers aren't vibecoding things because they never thought of it, rather than having actual real reasons?
Some people genuinely believe AI codes perfectly, and they can solve everything by vibe coding.
And yes, they truly believe their vibe coded AI solution is the best one ever made.
I work with those people. Its not malice. They genuinely believe that.
I was recently made redundant so had some time on my hands. Tried seeing if I could create some stuff 100% vibecoded.
My lord it was rough. When the project started it was like magic but once I was looking through the project after hitting road bumps, the code was gross, unscalable bs (this is after messing around with getting harnesses in place)
From what I can tell, there are 2 big camps that make up the most of AI programming users:
People who have the prerequisite experience who are able to use AI as a tool to eliminate the need to write bloat like boilerplate because they understand the code and therefore can tell when it's wrong.
People who legitimately think that AI is the second coming of Jesus and it can solve all the world's problems, you just have to ask it the right question. These people have no knowledge of the fields they are trying to replace and, as such, have no ability to verify that the AI produced what they wanted it to.
Because of this, Godot's restriction on vibe-coding makes sense since no one would need to write the kind of boilerplate that AI can usually do okay at and anyone else vibe-coding has no business submitting code.
At this point, if you're submitting code to Godot it needs to be well refined. Any changes now need to be well-researched and tested to work, two things I guarantee you that vibe-code isn't.
Frankly, the idea that an AI could write code for Godot that no one else in the history of the project has submitted before is absurd. Thinking that the regurgitation machine could come up with something thousands of the best open source game devs couldn't come up with over several years? Please.
AI users don't much care about anyone or anything. They'll gladly destabilize the future just to claim they made X many "things". It's a push button validation machine and they're intensely hooked on the dispensed treat.
Learning. The ones in charge of the AI don't care about how it impacts the repos, but every pull request that gets merged is a new datapoint for the AI to reference as the "correct" way to solve whatever that solution is.
If something like this ever does get good, it'd make for a pretty compelling sales pitch to tech businesses to buy their AI model that's "successfully merged vetted code into 50,000 open source projects". It might not ever get there, but if it does it's effectively a race to be the first for any AI model looking to make such a product.
Thank god, hope this helps out in the long run.
Sounds like a good change, although I believe that it needs a bit more clarification on what classifies as a "new feature", because that's a gradient, not a clear cut.
Id say anything that isn't just bug fixing should be considered a new feature.
Anything with the ‘enhancement’ tag on GitHub likely
do it like linux does and only accept contribution via a vetted and curated email distribution, this keeps out the AI bros and people who cant put in the work
Sounds good, like "Take responsibility for your code, you can't? Well not going to add it" while also understanding that ai for small stuff like auto completion is not really that harmful
Every day since I switched from Unity to Godot gives me a new piece of vindication, I swear.
Ngl this is a great thing to see at a time when so many projects I love are being flooded with low effort AI slop.
Hopefully the open source community over the next year or so converges on an optimal way to keep PR reviewers sane without being encumbered by so many shitty PRs.
I think if that means whitelisting PR submissions to verified contributors then that’s totally okay with me, I think the days are gone of truly anonymous or one time PR submissions since it accommodates drive by AI slop submissions too much.
I think from now on the only way that makes sense to accept a PR for review by a human is if you have a history of quality FOSS submissions. If you’re new you’ll have to explain your first submission and interact with the team to show that you understand the project and what you’re attempting to accomplish.
As of right now I’m fully for all major open source projects to stop requesting PRs from unknowns or folks that don’t have a history with them or open source in general. The AI submission avalanche is hurting too many projects for me to see any other option currently.
This is a great change, and I've gone from being hesitant to adopt Godot to no longer having any concerns about building a game using it
Classic Godot W
Happy to see AI banned makes me think about long term keep using godot
I bet that the AI fans see this new policy as an invitation to a contest of who can be the first to slip an AI-generated pull request past the maintainers, just so they can then brag about it.
This all makes sense to me and seems completely reasonable. "Take responsibility for your code" is the same standard we'd expect in a professional environment (even in ones with heavy AI use). Open source is different and you can't just fire people who submit BS PRs.
The Godot Foundation would have to analyze the cost, but even something like this could dramatically lower the amount of time wasted on vibe coded PRs. At the very least it could help prioritize PRs for review. Obviously there are ways to trick these tools, but if someone goes through the effort of making their code look human and actually work, mission accomplished? Lol.
It's an unfortunate reality, but I think open source projects in general are going to start needing automated AI PR reviews to catch vibe-coded and automated submissions. Banning helps, but making Github accounts is free.
Even outside of open source, initial AI code reviews are likely to become standard in the next few years, if they aren't already. I personally review my own code with AI to catch problems. I prefer writing most of the code myself (vibe coding creates way too much tech debt in my experience), but for reviews, documentation, and even help finding bugs, AI can be a huge time saver.
Love this! As someone who recently started using Godot, I’ve also become interested in contributing to the project. This makes me more excited to start diving in and solving real problems with real people.
Good. This is a no brainier for any self-respecting open source project to ban autonomous code contributions.
With the advent of AI slop code, I am reminded of my previous career before switching to tech which was high level restaurant work. When I was a sous chef it was easy to tell those who took pride in their craft and those who don't. McDonalds is always hiring and there's always going to be a need for that. But if you want to execute on projects/teams that make a difference you're going to need to put in some effort, simple as.
This is really good to read. Good work everyone!
It's my understanding anyone can fork Godot and accept whatever PR's they want. So how about one of the many AI-Evangelist do just that with a policy of accepting any and all LLM generated PR's?
That dumpster fire would be fun to watch.
Maybe send the contributions to the Redot or Blazium forks? They seem like the type of people who'd appreciate AI PR's.
…and so say all of us.
All in all a reasonable policy. I would however urge maintainers to not be overly trigger happy with bans under the second policy bullet point. Rules that say "no substantial AI code allowed, but some AI code allowed" will inevitably get boundary tested by contributors - you don't want to discourage well-meaning volunteers from disclosing AI use due to fear of being banned.
@Edit: typo fix
For sure, that's why we still then require an AI disclosure so we can evaluate the boundary.
We only ban obvious autonomous agents submitting slop. For regular humans, we'd ask for clarification if the boundary isn't clear, and close the PR if we consider they used it beyond what we tolerate.
Ai slop code is everywhere. 😡
This interaction right here is why I do not trust any vibe coding whatsoever:
Me: I want a documented source outside of you that answers this query.
Claude: There isn't one — and there can't be, because I didn't pull "two frames" from any source. I generated it as a plausible-sounding guess in my first reply, without checking anything. It wasn't a misremembered citation; it was a fabricated detail.
I'm a big fan of AI code assistance, but everything written in this policy is a no-brainer. Good job. I can't imagine what would compel somebody to submit a PR without even reviewing or understanding the code. That's just rude and disrespectful.
I go over PRs with 5x the attention I pay to code in my own project. I would expect the same of others.
Yas gagas !!
All good changes! Maybe we can finally get this PR merged, if people are having to sort through less wasteful/vibe-coded ones. I've been waiting on this feature for like 2 years lol ; w ;
I really appreciate the clarity of the language here too about using AI for small adjustments or language translation being acceptable uses, so long as it is disclosed. I feel like it's rare to see a nuanced policy like this so it's pretty cool.