{"slug": "what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help", "title": "What your git log does not record about AI help", "summary": "A developer audited 569 commits across two AI-assisted research repositories and released Git Provenance Auditor, a tool that scans git history for AI assistance trailers such as Co-Authored-By lines from Claude Code and Cursor and tracks revisions to agent working files like agent-notes. The audit, detailed in the paper \"What Git Does Not Record\" (arXiv:2610.28655), found the trailers capture only part of the trail: in one repository 66 of 121 commits carrying any AI trailer used the standard Co-Authored-By line, while in the other 39 commits revised the agent-notes file but only 1 carried the trailer. The developer warns that citing commit logs as provenance for AI-assisted work leaves most of the trail missing, a gap that matters for audits and for evaluations built on agent-written code.", "body_md": "I audited 569 commits across two of my own AI-assisted research repositories and built a small tool to run the same audit on any public repo. The paper is \"What Git Does Not Record\" (arXiv:2610.28655, NeurIPS 2026 AI-Native Academia Workshop).\n\nThe tool, Git Provenance Auditor, scans git history for AI assistance trailers (for example Co-Authored-By lines from Claude Code and Cursor), counts how often agent working files such as agent-notes get revised, and shows how much of the agent's work the log actually records.\n\nThe uncomfortable finding: the trailers cover only part of it. In one repository, 66 of 121 commits carrying any AI trailer use the standard Co-Authored-By line. In the other, 39 commits revise the agent-notes file and only 1 carries the trailer.\n\nIf you cite commit logs as provenance for AI-assisted work, most of the trail is missing. That matters for audits, for evaluations built on agent-written code, and for anyone reconstructing what an agent actually did after the fact.\n\nTool: [https://github.com/ktwu01/git-provenance-auditor](https://github.com/ktwu01/git-provenance-auditor)\n\nPaper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28655](https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28655)\n\nFeedback welcome, especially from people maintaining agent-written codebases: what do you wish your git history recorded?", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/ktwu01/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help-43d7", "published_at": "2026-11-05 20:18:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-05 20:19:31.739115+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "developer-tools", "ai-safety", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Git Provenance Auditor", "Claude Code", "Cursor", "arXiv", "NeurIPS"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-your-git-log-does-not-record-about-ai-help.jsonld"}}