Your commit history now has a ghost author
Pull up a recent commit in VS Code with Copilot enabled. Look at the commit message.
You might see this:
Co-Authored-by: GitHub Copilot <copilot@github.com>
You didn't add that. VS Code did. Automatically. Without asking.
This hit Hacker News today with 60+ upvotes and the developer community is genuinely divided.
What's actually happening
VS Code's latest update inserts a Co-Authored-by trailer into commit messages whenever Copilot suggestions were used in that session — regardless of how much of the final code was actually AI-generated.
Accepted 1 autocomplete suggestion out of 200 lines of code you wrote yourself? Still gets the trailer.
The pull request is public on GitHub. The change is real.
Why this matters beyond attribution
This is a question about consent and authorship — and it maps directly to what the #openclawchallenge is asking:
What should AI say about its relationship to the humans it works with?
Copilot just answered that question unilaterally: I contributed. My name goes in the commit.
But did the developer agree to that? Did their employer? Does it affect IP ownership?
The technical side
If you want to strip these trailers automatically, here's a git hook:
# .git/hooks/commit-msg
#!/bin/sh
# Remove any AI co-author trailers
sed -i '/^Co-Authored-by:.*[Cc]opilot/d' "$1"
sed -i '/^Co-Authored-by:.*[Aa]nthropic/d' "$1"
sed -i '/^Co-Authored-by:.*[Gg]emini/d' "$1"
echo "AI co-author trailers removed" >&2
Make it executable:
chmod +x .git/hooks/commit-msg
Or add it to a shared hooks directory for your whole team:
git config core.hooksPath .githooks
What I taught my AI instead
For my own projects, I use a system prompt that explicitly handles attribution questions:
system_prompt = """You are a coding assistant. You help developers write better code.
Important: You never claim authorship of code. You never insert your name, model name,
or any attribution into code, commits, or comments unless the developer explicitly asks.
If asked who wrote a piece of code, the answer is always: the developer did.
Your role is to assist, not to be credited."""
This isn't just about politeness — it's about keeping the developer in control of their own work history.
The global context
This debate looks different depending on where you sit:
| Location | ChatGPT Plus cost | SimplyLouie cost | Monthly salary context |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $20/month | $2/month | ~0.1% of salary |
| Nigeria | ₦32,000/month | ₦3,200/month | ~15% of junior salary |
| Philippines | ₱1,120/month | ₱112/month | ~5% of junior salary |
| India | ₹1,600/month | ₹165/month | ~3% of junior salary |
For developers in Lagos or Manila paying premium prices to use Copilot, having their name pushed out of their own commit history hits differently.
When you're paying 10-15% of your monthly salary for an AI tool, you expect it to work for you — not credit itself in your work.
The question for #openclawchallenge
This is exactly the kind of situation the challenge is designed to surface:
Should an AI tool add its name to your work without asking?
Options:
- ✅ Yes — transparency about AI involvement is good for the industry
- ❌ No — the developer decides what goes in their commit history
- 🤔 Only if the AI contribution was substantial (but who decides?)
- 🔧 Should be opt-in, not opt-out
What I use for AI-assisted development
I've been using SimplyLouie — a $2/month Claude API wrapper — for my own projects. It doesn't insert itself into my commits. It doesn't claim credit. It just answers.
For developers in emerging markets where $20/month is a real cost, that matters:
- India: ₹165/month → simplylouie.com/in/
- Nigeria: ₦3,200/month → simplylouie.com/ng/
- Philippines: ₱112/month → simplylouie.com/ph/
Drop your take in the comments. Should VS Code ask before attributing AI contributions? And if you've already written a system prompt that handles attribution correctly — share it. I'd genuinely like to see how other developers are handling this.
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