Godot moves to reject AI-authored code PRs; contributors must disclose AI assistance

Godot is moving to reject AI-authored code contributions in its contributor policy. PC Gamer reported on June 30 that the Godot Foundation and project maintainers plan to amend the guidelines to forbid AI-authored code, pull requests submitted by AI agents, and AI-generated text used in human-to-human project communication.

The player-facing impact is indirect, but the developer-facing impact is concrete. Godot powers commercial and indie games, and the health of its review process affects engine reliability. The Foundation says its maintainers were already dealing with tedious pull request review, and that AI-generated submissions made the work more draining because feedback may not train a future maintainer or even reach someone who understands the patch.

The policy is not framed as a total ban on every AI-assisted action. According to the report, Godot may still allow AI assistance for menial tasks, but contributors will need to disclose that use. The project also distinguishes machine translation from AI-written communication: machine translations can remain acceptable when the original message was written by a person.

The r/gamedev post went up on June 30 at 18:27 UTC and passed 2,100 points. The thread treated the change mostly as a pull request quality and maintainer workload issue. Developers in the comments described AI-generated PRs as shifting subtle-error detection and long-term maintenance onto reviewers, while others noted that open-source engines face a different contribution flood than closed engines such as Unity or Unreal.

For developers who use Godot, the practical rule is accountability. If a patch touches the engine, the submitter needs to understand the code, respond to review, and fix failures after merge. AI assistance must not replace that responsibility. The change also signals a broader open-source game tech trend: projects are adding process barriers before low-effort automated contributions consume reviewer time.