Don’t Include AI Company Ads in Commit Messages, Developer Criticizes

Objection to “Advertisements”

Sneaking Into Commit Messages A criticism of a certain “trend” in software development has been gaining attention. Finnish developer Akseli Lahtinen sparked debate within the tech community with his blog post “Stop advertising in your commits,” published on May 26, 2026. Lahtinen’s argument is straightforward: including the names or product titles of AI companies in Git commit messages is undeniably a form of “advertising” and should be stopped. “Assisted by ○○,” “Co-authored-by: △△,” or “Sent from my ×ד—you may have come across such phrases in commit messages. While they might appear as a transparent effort to disclose the tools used, Lahtinen deems this practice as “free advertising” for companies.

Why Is This Considered “Advertising”?

At the core of Lahtinen’s argument is the issue of “unequal value exchange.” Many AI coding tools are subscription-based and require developers to pay monthly fees to use them. Despite this, developers end up writing the names of these companies in commit messages, which are visible to anyone. This inadvertently contributes to increasing brand awareness for these companies. “I know you use ad blockers,” Lahtinen remarked. “Yet, you’re adding ads to your commits.” This points to a paradox. While many developers block ads in their browsers, they unwittingly promote AI companies for free in their code repositories. From the companies’ perspective, this results in word-of-mouth marketing within the developer community at no additional cost.

The True Purpose of Commit Messages This

raises a fundamental question: what is the original purpose of commit messages? Git commit messages are technical documentation meant to record changes in the codebase. Their primary purpose is to convey “what was changed” and “why the change was made” to future developers and team members. When reviewing past commits during a code review, what developers want to know is not “which AI tool assisted in generating the code,” but rather “the intention and context behind the change.” Including AI company names in commit messages can potentially reduce the readability and clarity of this technical information. Lahtinen suggests that if there is a need to disclose the use of AI tools, it should be done in the description sections of merge or pull requests. In the context of code reviews, information about which tools were used and how they were applied can have some value. However, including this information in commit messages, which are permanently recorded in the repository’s history, is misplaced, according to him.

The Problem of Misusing “Co-authored-by”

One particular practice that has drawn criticism is the misuse of the “Co-authored-by” feature in Git. The Co-authored-by tag is designed to accurately record multiple contributors to a piece of code. Platforms like GitHub reflect commits tagged with this feature in the profiles of the listed contributors. However, there is a growing trend of listing AI tools as Co-authored-by contributors. AI is not an “author” but merely a tool that assists in generating parts of the code. This usage diverges from the original intention of the Git feature and could undermine the reliability of contributor records, sparking concern within the developer community. In his blog post, Lahtinen humorously included repeated mentions of “Co-authored-by: ur mom” to highlight the absurdity of tagging anything and everything as a co-author.

Impact on the Open-Source Community This

issue is particularly significant in the realm of open-source projects. Open-source software is often maintained by volunteer developers. If AI company names become scattered throughout the commit history of such projects, it could raise concerns about the projects’ independence and neutrality. Moreover, the frequent appearance of paid AI tools’ names in open-source projects could give the impression that “you can’t write good code without using this tool.” This, in turn, could indirectly undermine developers’ freedom to choose their tools. At the end of his article, Lahtinen clarifies his stance on AI programming tools. He references another piece he wrote, “Why I will likely never use AI programming tools,” underscoring his ongoing skepticism toward AI coding tools in general.

Is a Shift in Developer Mindset Necessary?

The blog post raises an issue that is more about development culture than technical challenges. As the use of AI tools becomes more widespread, the questions of how much of their use should be disclosed and the appropriate ways to do so remain unresolved in the community. At the same time, there are clear points of agreement with Lahtinen’s critique. The distinction between disclosing tool usage and engaging in free advertising for companies is likely to become an increasingly important topic within the developer community. Saying “I hate ads” while writing company names into commits—how each developer reconciles this contradiction remains to be seen. As technology evolves and reshapes development practices, the proper role of commit messages is quietly being reevaluated.