Make the AI disclosure one generic trailer

Andrew Dunnrequested to merge
standards/generic-ai-disclosure into main

What does this MR do and why?

I want AI-Assisted: yes to be the only required AI-disclosure trailer, because an AI disclosure is enough and the name of the tool adds nothing a reader needs.

AI-Tools: is optional in the contributing standard now, and the default form in this repository's CONTRIBUTING.md, in every CONTRIBUTING.md template, in the agents-md template and in the merge request template leaves the tool name out. The check, the standard's SKILL.md and its template change together as one standard, and just validate holds the three project starters byte-identical to that template.

A project has nothing to do. Commits that already carry an AI-Tools: line stay as they are, and a project can drop the line from its CONTRIBUTING.md the next time it touches the file.

References

standards/generic-agents-md, the companion change that makes AGENTS.md the one agent-instructions file, merges after this one.

Standards affected

contributing: check.sh drops check_file_contains CONTRIBUTING.md "AI-Tools:" and keeps the AI-Assisted: yes assertion. The ## Verify block is regenerated with just sync-verify, and the rule, the description, the unasserted: field and the AI-disclosure details describe the one-trailer form. The standard stays enforcing, and the check accepts every file it accepted before.

agents-md: template text only, no assertion change.

Exemption implications

None. An exemption a consumer holds for the removed assertion reports as unused and can be deleted.

Test plan

  • just guard passes locally
  • just check passes locally (self-conformance)
  • just ship passes on the branch merged with main: TOTAL: 21 standard(s) passed, 0 exempt, 0 failed
  • just check-one STANDARD=contributing REPO=<dir> passes on a CONTRIBUTING.md carrying only AI-Assisted: yes and fails on one carrying neither trailer. The same only-AI-Assisted: yes file failed on the AI-Tools: assertion before this change.
  • Templates lifted into a consumer repo. The four CONTRIBUTING.md templates are prose and just validate holds them byte-identical, so this is left to review.

Reviewer checklist

  • Voice is GitLab Inc. neutral (no solo-developer narrative, no decorative essays)
  • No em-dashes in customer-facing prose
  • No filler words ("comprehensive", "robust", "leverage", "seamless")
  • Trailers present (Signed-off-by:, Changelog: if user-visible, AI-Assisted: if applicable)
  • CODEOWNERS section matches paths touched
  • If breaking for consumers, CHANGELOG entry calls it out and the schedule is realistic

An AI tool wrote this change and ran the checks above.

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