Godot Bans AI-Authored Code: 'We Can't Trust Heavy Users to Fix It'

Godot Foundation will no longer accept any code contributions authored by AI, citing an unsustainable burden on maintainers and a fundamental lack of accountability. The policy, announced in a blog post after months of deliberation, slaps a hard ban on AI-authored pull requests, AI agents submitting code, and AI-generated text in human-to-human communication.

Why Maintainers Finally Drew the Line

Back in February, Godot’s maintainers flagged an “increasingly draining and demoralizing” wave of AI slop pull requests. By July, the foundation had enough. “We can't trust heavy users of AI to understand their code enough to fix it,” the foundation wrote. The problem isn’t just volume—it’s that reviewing AI-generated code offers zero return on mentorship. “If your feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, it becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review.”

What the New Policy Actually Says

The updated contributor guidelines will explicitly reject AI-authored code. Contributors may use AI for “menial things” but must disclose that use. No AI-generated text in human communications is allowed—the foundation calls that “a basic principle of respect.” Machine translations of human-authored text remain acceptable because a human still owns the original content. AI agents are outright banned from opening or managing pull requests. The policy is intentionally conservative: “Things change every day with respect to the current suite of AI tools available,” the foundation noted, promising to re-evaluate as the technology evolves.

What This Means for Open Source

Godot isn’t a tiny hobby project—it powers commercial hits like Slay the Spire 2 and The Case of the Golden Idol. This policy puts a hard stop on the flood of low-effort contributions that waste maintainer time without building the contributor pipeline. Expect other open-source projects wrestling with the same problem to watch Godot’s approach closely. When the maintainers doing unpaid review work say “AI cannot take responsibility,” the only sustainable answer is to require a human who can.

Source: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
Domain: pcgamer.com