commitlint-plugin-rai

Installation 🔧

npm install --save-dev commitlint-plugin-rai

Usage 🚦

Add the plugin to your commitlint.config.js:

export default {
  extends: ['@commitlint/config-conventional'],
  plugins: ['commitlint-plugin-rai'],
  rules: {
    'rai-footer-exists': [2, 'always'],
    // Requires the Signed-off-by footer from `git commit -s`:
    'rai-signed-off-by': [2, 'always'],
  },
};

Once this is in place, commitlint will refuse to proceed until a valid RAI trailer is present — and, with rai-signed-off-by enabled, a Signed-off-by: Your Name <email> footer too.

Valid Trailers 📌

Pick the one that matches the majority AI contribution. Skip it entirely and the commit fails. Extra footers are fine — the rule only checks that at least one valid footer exists.

No negotiations.

1. Authored-by: [Human] <email> — all you, no AI involved
2. Commit-generated-by: [AI Tool] <email> — AI wrote the commit message, you wrote the code
3. Assisted-by: [AI Tool] <email> — AI helped some, you were still driving
4. Co-authored-by: [AI Tool] <email> — roughly 50/50, like actual pair programming
5. Generated-by: [AI Tool] <email> — AI did most of it, you supervised

All patterns are case-insensitive, because enforcing honesty does not require enforcing capitalization.

Why This Exists ⚖️

If two humans pair program, both names go on the commit. If an AI helps and we pretend it didn’t happen, that’s a choice, but it’s a strange one.

Git already supports trailers. This plugin just closes the gap between “we could do this” and “we actually do this,” by making attribution a default instead of a discussion.

If you want the longer version of that reasoning, it’s written up at Did AI Erase Attribution?.

This plugin is the boring enforcement layer that follows.

Requirements ⚙️

• Node.js >= 22.0.0, < 27.0.0
• @commitlint/cli >= 19.0.0

License 📄

PolyForm Shield License 1.0.0 — free to use anywhere, including inside commercial products. What's off the table: providing anything that competes with this tool — selling it, rebranding it, hosting it, or shipping a practical substitute, paid or free. This is a plain-language summary; the LICENSE is what actually controls. Commercial licensing questions: [email protected].