THE Linux Kernel Maintainers have voted to retire the Assisted-by tag for patches. At the Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit on 8 October, attendees agreed to drop the tag, and a revert patch landed in the documentation development branch on 14 October. Although the public AI-guidance for kernel development remains in place, maintainers expect the wording to change once the patch is published in the official docs.
The move follows criticisms that the Assisted-by tag failed to accurately reflect AI involvement. The revert patch explains that real AI usage is far more common than the tag suggested, with data showing 18,533 non-merge changes before Linux 7.3-rc7 and only about 10% carrying the tag. The changes argue that a missing tag poorly indicates whether AI assisted a patch, and that for developers who rely on AI tools, the tag provides little clarity about what the AI actually did.
The patch therefore removes the tag requirement from the kernel-writing guide and strips special handling for the tag in checkpatch[.]pl. Meanwhile, human accountability remains intact: submitters should describe their process in the patch description or changelog, including tools used, affected parts, and how they tested the result; maintainers can request more testing, tighten reviews, or reject patches as needed.
Linus Torvalds previously rejected an AI ban, favouring judgment over prohibiting tool use. He argued that understanding the code is more important than the attribution of the tool used.