## Summary
Documents the policy around AI-assisted contributions, for both humans
and agents:
- `.github/pull_request_template.md`: notes that AI use is encouraged
for researching, creating, and reviewing changes, but contributors must
deeply understand their contributions, and PR descriptions from external
contributors must be written by a human.
- `.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/1.bug_report.yml`: adds the equivalent note
for bug reports — issue descriptions from external contributors must be
written by a human, though AI may help create reproductions.
- `AGENTS.md`: replaces the old "PR Descriptions" section with two new
sections. "GitHub Pull Requests" distinguishes branch PRs (agents may
write descriptions) from fork PRs targeting `vercel/next.js` (agents may
not). "GitHub Issues, Comments, and Discussions" restricts agent-written
issues, discussions, and comments to members of the
`vercel`/`vercel-labs` GitHub orgs, tells agents how to check membership
via the GitHub API, lists what agents can still help non-members with
(drafting details, reviewing, reproductions, translation, searching for
duplicates), and carves out exceptions (commenting on the user's own PR,
Vercel-operated bots, GitHub/Graphite review bots, and forks of the
repo).
- Renames the LLM watermark marker from `NEXT_JS_LLM_PR` to
`NEXT_JS_LLM` everywhere it appears (`AGENTS.md`,
`contributing/repository/pull-request-descriptions.md`, and the
`create-pr`/`backport-pr` skills), since it now also applies to issues,
discussions, and comments. Nothing in the repo consumes the old marker
name.
- `.agents/skills/create-pr/SKILL.md`: adds a "Fork PRs vs Branch PRs"
section referencing the `AGENTS.md` policy. Assorted typo fixes along
the way.
## Verification
- `gh api /user/memberships/orgs` and `gh api
orgs/vercel/members/<login>` (confirmed the documented membership checks
work and return the documented statuses)
- Not run: no test/build commands (docs-only change; prettier applied
via the pre-commit hook)
<!-- NEXT_JS_LLM -->
This is inspired by
https://glama.ai/blog/2026-03-19-open-source-has-a-bot-problem#user-content-how-are-these-agents-setup
If agents follow this pattern, we could potentially add labels (this PR
does not touch the labeler) to these PRs which may help with review and
triage. This does not change how we'd deal with these PRs (AI generated
PRs are okay!), but I would like to know if a PR is AI generated when
reviewing it.
Continues #39778Closes#40499
## Bug
- [ ] Related issues linked using `fixes #number`
- [ ] Integration tests added
- [ ] Errors have helpful link attached, see `contributing.md`
## Feature
- [ ] Implements an existing feature request or RFC. Make sure the
feature request has been accepted for implementation before opening a
PR.
- [ ] Related issues linked using `fixes #number`
- [ ] Integration tests added
- [ ] Documentation added
- [ ] Telemetry added. In case of a feature if it's used or not.
- [ ] Errors have helpful link attached, see `contributing.md`
## Documentation / Examples
- [ ] Make sure the linting passes by running `pnpm lint`
- [ ] The examples guidelines are followed from [our contributing
doc](https://github.com/vercel/next.js/blob/canary/contributing.md#adding-examples)
Co-authored-by: Tim Neutkens <tim@timneutkens.nl>
Co-authored-by: JJ Kasper <jj@jjsweb.site>
Benjamin Woodruff