COSMIC Bans LLM-Generated Pull Requests

2026-10-01 cosmic system76 ai open-source contribution

System76 has changed the pull request template for COSMIC, its Rust-based desktop environment: contributions may no longer contain LLM-generated content. The change was merged on September 30 by Jeremy Soller (jackpot51) and applies to the cosmic-epoch repository, with a script included to roll the same policy out to all pop-os repositories.

The New Template

Every pull request now requires the contributor to check off these statements:

I have not included any LLM (also known as AI) generated content in this PR, including code, comments, and descriptions.
I understand these changes in full and will be able to respond to review comments.
My change is accurately described in the commit message.
My contribution is tested and working as described.
I have read the Developer Certificate of Origin and certify my contribution under its conditions.

The Developer Certificate of Origin is new for COSMIC as well. It is the same DCO used by the Linux kernel: a lightweight statement that the contributor has the right to submit the code under the project's license. A pull request missing the confirmation may be closed.

The Reason: Review Workload

Jeremy Soller named the main motivation in the pull request: review workload. The COSMIC team has seen more submissions from first-time contributors using LLMs, but many of these were unplanned and rarely accepted. AI-generated contributions still need careful review, and they often come from contributors who do not know the project well.

COSMIC developers were already strict with these submissions before the change. In August, contributor Jacob Gkau noted that most large LLM-written pull requests were already being rejected, especially when they raised copyright or maintainability concerns. The project already required disclosure of AI-generated code; the new rule goes further and forbids it outright.

One exception exists: cosmic-flatpak, where upstream projects manage their own Flatpak manifests. The COSMIC team mainly checks those manifests for proper sandboxing before accepting them.

The reaction on the merged PR was positive, with community members responding with thumbs up, hearts, and rockets.