I've been honestly adding Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com> to every commit where I used an LLM even slightly—whether it's generating test scaffolding, drafting docs, or just bouncing ideas. I thought transparency was the right thing to do. Turns out, people see that trailer and immediately assume the whole thing is “vibe coded” AI slop, no further questions asked. The irony is that being honest about my process is what's getting my work dismissed.

Now I'm genuinely torn. Do I keep the trailer and accept that some people will write off my work at a glance? Or do I drop it and lose something I actually believe in? It's frustrating that there's no widely understood distinction between “I prompted an LLM to write my entire app” and “I used an LLM as a tool while writing my own code.” I don't have an answer yet—just sitting with the discomfort for now.

@hongminhee

I have been adding that too, but my work doesn't receive enough attention to draw any sort of criticism. I don't think it'd bother me, but I'm just a hobbyist doing this for fun.

Something that might help your case (or make it worse, now I think about it) is adding details about what AI does to CREDITS.md[1] (or a file less likely to generate "they're crediting AI!" reactions).

I feel it's very disrespectful to write off anyone's work like that.

[1] https://github.com/devdanzin/lafleur/blob/main/CREDITS.md

@hongminhee As a co-maintainer of a large FOSS project I can tell you that today it is impossible for us to see who is just vibe coding and will take us hours to review, to find out that the person is just feeding out comments into an LLM to get some kind of credit for it.

I'm very sympathetic to your plight, but your work being rejected without a look is just because we're overwhelmed.

If you're one of the (few) good ones you're just suffering from the rest just making slop.

@hongminhee personally, if i see a project allows generated content i distrust it and will avoid it if at all possible

@hongminhee if you are only using it to translate your docs i think something like: "documentation translated by" would be a fine tag to use instead.

@hongminhee

If the problem is people are assuming the worst when you write "co-authored by Claude" maybe you need to be more specific in the statement and say "Claude used for x,y,z purposes"

I honestly don't know if it will help because people are so emotionally charged with it. It's understandable because AI is honestly causing a lot of problems for people and it's for the most part being pushed by rich idiots.

I personally can't stand AI but I did play around with it for a time tbh.

@hongminhee in my opinion, you should "take ownership" over the code. Verify it works, that it uses best practices, be prepared to debug it and fix it if needed. Doing that, Claude is just a tool, like a compiler making machine code from your c++. It just has a natural language interface.

@hongminhee Do you also add Co-authored-by trailers if you had used Google Translate?

I mean, I feel the sentiment is good, but I feel the purpose and the feelings associated with it are maybe more interesting?

Because if its meant as a 'warning' that LLMs were somewhat involved, the reaction from others seems natural. But if its about honesty, I'd wonder, honest about what, and why would one need to be honest about it?

Adding to this: much of my LLM usage actually goes into writing documentation and communicating in English—a language that isn't mine but that open source essentially demands. For non-native English speakers, LLMs are a genuine equalizer. They let me write docs that don't get ignored for sounding awkward, and participate in discussions without spending twice the effort a native speaker would. But when English-native developers dismiss LLM-assisted writing wholesale, they're not even aware of the privilege baked into that judgment. It's like someone who's never had to do housework scoffing at a washing machine for making people “lazy”—easy to say when the burden was never yours to begin with.