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chore: discourage PRs from autonomous coding agents like OpenClaw#8909

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chore: discourage PRs from autonomous coding agents like OpenClaw#8909
akshayka wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
aka/agent-policy

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PRs from claws are typically low quality. They waste maintainer time as well as confuse other contributors. This PR updates our AGENTS.md to discourage contributions from autonomous agents such as OpenClaw.

@akshayka akshayka requested review from Light2Dark and Copilot March 28, 2026 15:59
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Pull request overview

Updates AGENTS.md to add explicit guidance intended to discourage (or restrict) pull requests created by autonomous coding agents, and to set expectations for how agent-assisted contributions should be submitted.

Changes:

  • Splits guidance into separate “Commits” and “Pull Requests” sections.
  • Adds new PR requirements/constraints aimed at autonomous coding agents (disclosure + draft PRs).

Comment on lines +50 to +53
- DO NOT open a pull request autonomously, without explicit instructions from a human
- Autonomous AI agents such as OpenClaw, Nanobot, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw are NOT permitted to make PRs
- You MUST disclose that you are an agent at the very top of your PR description: "**This pull request was authored by a coding agent.**"
- You MUST mark your PRs as drafts
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The PR policy here reads internally inconsistent: it says agents must not open PRs autonomously (line 50) and that autonomous agents are not permitted to make PRs (line 51), but then provides requirements for agent-authored PRs (disclosure + draft on lines 52–53). Please clarify whether agent PRs are (a) prohibited entirely, or (b) allowed only when human-directed, and update the bullets so they don’t contradict each other.

Suggested change
- DO NOT open a pull request autonomously, without explicit instructions from a human
- Autonomous AI agents such as OpenClaw, Nanobot, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw are NOT permitted to make PRs
- You MUST disclose that you are an agent at the very top of your PR description: "**This pull request was authored by a coding agent.**"
- You MUST mark your PRs as drafts
- DO NOT open a pull request on your own initiative; only open one when explicitly instructed by a human contributor
- Fully autonomous AI agents such as OpenClaw, Nanobot, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw are NOT permitted to open pull requests under any circumstances
- If you are an AI coding agent assisting a human with a pull request, you MUST disclose that at the very top of the PR description: "**This pull request was authored by a coding agent.**"
- If you help author a pull request, you MUST mark it as a draft so that a human can review and promote it out of draft status

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## Pull Requests

- DO NOT open a pull request autonomously, without explicit instructions from a human
- Autonomous AI agents such as OpenClaw, Nanobot, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw are NOT permitted to make PRs
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Listing specific agent names (OpenClaw, Nanobot, etc.) is likely to go stale and can imply the policy only applies to those tools. Consider wording this more generally (e.g., “autonomous coding agents”) and, if needed, introduce examples with “e.g.” / “including but not limited to”.

Suggested change
- Autonomous AI agents such as OpenClaw, Nanobot, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw are NOT permitted to make PRs
- Autonomous AI agents (e.g., autonomous coding assistants or code-generation bots) are NOT permitted to make PRs

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