#1143541 lintian: add new tag 'agent-instructions-exists'

Package:
lintian
Source:
lintian
Submitter:
Lucas Nussbaum
Date:
2026-08-04 12:33:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1143541#5
Date:
2026-08-03 21:46:42 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

The attached patch adds a new classification tag
'agent-instructions-exists' that is issued when the upstream sources
ship an instructions file consumed by an AI coding agent. The following
files are detected: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md, .cursorrules,
.windsurfrules, .github/copilot-instructions.md, and files under
.cursor/rules/.

I plan to use it in trends.debian.net, to track AI adoption among
Debian's upstreams.

Best,

Lucas
#1143541#10
Date:
2026-08-03 22:00:00 UTC
From:
To:
I attached a new version of the patch, dropping the namespace from the
emmitted tag.

let me know if you prefer a MR (but I'm not allowed to push MRs to
lintian/lintian, probably because I'm not a member of the project).

Lucas
#1143541#15
Date:
2026-08-03 22:17:12 UTC
From:
To:
Is this AI generated/LLM written? At the moment we are waiting for the results on the GR if this happens to be the case.

Yes please do this in any case.

You can fork and then open a MR from there. This is how I also do it despite being a maintainer.

Best,
Nilesh
#1143541#20
Date:
2026-08-04 12:17:53 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Yes, however the code is quite simple and I reviewed it manually, so
maybe you could consider it on its own merits.
to submit MRs.

Done now:
https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/-/merge_requests/778

Lucas