docs(ai-policy): apply AI rules to all contributors

[zachyale]

Description

There is copy within the AI Policy that exempts maintainers/core maintainers from the AI Policy. This is against the spirit of our governance document, and should be revised to clarify the AI Policy applies equally to all contributors. This PR rectifies that

Linked Issue

Fixes #1573

Changes

• Updates the AI Policy to clarify that all contributors are bound to the AI Policy equally.

Manual Testing Steps

N/A

Screenshots (Optional)

N/A

Additional Context (Optional)

Credit to /u/MysteriousPizza8390 for noting this here

AI Disclosure

None :)

Checklist

• This PR links and implements an accepted issue.
• This PR is a single focused change.
• There are new or updated tests validating this change.
• I ran just ui check and just api check.
• I have added screenshots if there were any UI changes.
• I have disclosed any AI usage as per the organization AI Policy above.
• I understand all of my submitted changes.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Documentation
  • Updated the AI usage policy to ensure consistent governance standards across all community contributors. The policy now explicitly requires disclosure, review, testing, and human accountability for AI-assisted work regardless of contributor role. This change removes previous exemptions and establishes uniform requirements for maintaining transparency and accountability in AI-assisted development practices.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Repository YAML (base), Organization UI (inherited)

Review profile: ASSERTIVE

Plan: Pro

Run ID: a0d8346d-1f43-416e-9fc8-ac91fc67b035

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 5e0eac5 and f934215.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• AI_POLICY.md

📜 Recent review details

⏰ Context from checks skipped due to timeout of 90000ms. You can increase the timeout in your CodeRabbit configuration to a maximum of 15 minutes (900000ms). (3)

• GitHub Check: Test Suite / Frontend Tests
• GitHub Check: Test Suite / Backend Tests
• GitHub Check: Analyze (java-kotlin)

🧰 Additional context used

📓 Path-based instructions (1)

**/*

⚙️ CodeRabbit configuration file

**/*: This project is being developed using current and future-facing technologies:

• Java 25 with --enable-preview (preview features are INTENTIONAL and encouraged)
• Spring Boot 4 (latest major version, check APIs accordingly)
• Jackson 3 (new package: tools.jackson.* instead of com.fasterxml.jackson.*)
• Hibernate 7.3.x (Jakarta Persistence 3.2, new APIs; avoid deprecated Hibernate 5/6 patterns)
• Angular 21 (signals-based reactivity, no NgModules unless legacy)

Grimmory Internal Tools

• epub4j and pdfium4j are our own internal tools developed by the Grimmory team.
• Always verify behavior and API changes against the upstream repositories:
  • epub4j: https://github.com/grimmory-tools/epub4j
  • pdfium4j: https://github.com/grimmory-tools/pdfium4j
• If you encounter issues with these libraries, check if a fix exists in the upstream grimmory-tools organization.

Metadata Standards and Compliance

• For all metadata writing and parsing logic, double-check against Dublin Core and ANSI standards to ensure perfect official compliance.
• We strictly follow the widespread and official XML-compliant methods for EPUB2, EPUB3, CBX, and PDF formats.

General Java and Spring rules

• ALWAYS prefer modern, idiomatic Java 25 constructs over legacy patterns.
• Preview features (--enable-preview) are enabled and intentional; do NOT flag them as risky unless there is a concrete runtime issue.
• Prefer: records, sealed classes/interfaces, pattern matching (switch expressions, instanceof), structured concurrency (StructuredTaskScope), scoped values, string templates, unnamed patterns/variables.
• Prefer virtual threads (Thread.ofVirtual(), Executors.newVirtualThreadPerTaskExecutor()) over platform threads for I/O-bound work.
• Prefer the new Sequenced Collections API (SequencedCollection, SequencedMap) where applicable.
• Prefer var for local variables when the type is obvious from context.
• Use stream().toList() instead of stream().collect(Collectors.toList()) for imm...

Files:

• AI_POLICY.md

🧠 Learnings (1)

📚 Learning: 2026-05-18T14:54:39.422Z

Learnt from: alexhb1
Repo: grimmory-tools/grimmory PR: 1379
File: frontend/src/assets/styles/tailwind.css:3-4
Timestamp: 2026-05-18T14:54:39.422Z
Learning: In the grimmory-tools/grimmory repository, Biome is not used for linting/formatting (no `biome.json` and no Biome dependency in `package.json`). During code reviews, do not raise Biome-related issues or recommend adding/changing `biome.json`/Biome dependencies for formatting or linting in this project.

Applied to files:

• AI_POLICY.md

🔇 Additional comments (1)

AI_POLICY.md (1)

37-40: LGTM!

---

Walkthrough

The AI usage policy in AI_POLICY.md is updated to remove the exemption that previously applied only to outside contributors, ensuring the disclosure, review, testing, and human accountability requirements apply uniformly to all contributors regardless of their role.

Changes

AI Policy Clarification

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Policy text update to remove maintainer exemption AI_POLICY.md	Lines 37–40 replace the language that limited disclosure and accountability rules to outside contributors with clarification that these requirements apply equally to all contributors, from first-time contributors to core maintainers.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~3 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• grimmory-tools/grimmory#547: Initially introduced the AI policy that included the maintainer exemption now being removed by this PR.

Suggested labels

chore

Suggested reviewers

• balazs-szucs
• imnotjames

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The PR title follows the conventional commit format with 'docs' scope and descriptive subject that accurately reflects the main change.
Description check	✅ Passed	The PR description includes all required sections: description, linked issue, changes, manual testing, AI disclosure, and completed checklist.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The PR fully implements issue #1573 by removing the maintainer exemption and updating policy text to apply equally to all contributors as required.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	All changes are scoped to the AI Policy documentation update and directly address the linked issue with no extraneous modifications.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

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✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch docs/update-ai-policy-copy

✨ Simplify code

• Create PR with simplified code
• Commit simplified code in branch docs/update-ai-policy-copy

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[zachyale]

@grimmory-tools/maintainers

Going to keep this in draft so everyone has a chance to provide input on this.

[alexhb1]

All good here

[zachyale]

Following lazy consensus, this is good to be merged now 👍