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

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.