Merge pull request #112 from nf-core/91-new-rfc-nf-core-should-have-a-policy-about-use-of-llmsai

RFC Stage 3: nf-core should have a policy about use of LLMs/AI

Author: jfy133

proposals/0091-nf-core-llm-ai-statement.md

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+- Start Date: 2025-10-15
+- Reference Issues: https://github.com/nf-core/proposals/issues/91
+- Implementation PR: [https://github.com/nf-core/website/pull/3367](https://github.com/nf-core/website/pull/3705)
+
+# Summary
+
+nf-core should have a clear policy on when it is OK/not OK, and how to use LLMS for generating new code and PRs.
+
+# Champion
+
+[@jfy133](https://github.com/jfy133)
+
+# Background & Motivation
+
+Derived from the proposal here: https://github.com/nf-core/proposals/issues/61, some members of the core team and community were not comfortable to immediately start 'blindly' allowing LLM associated code within the nf-core ecosystem, primarily due to:
+
+- Quality of code in some PRs
+- Concerns about the legality/lack of attribution
+- Adding a lot of extra cruft to the template purely to try and make sure AI agents 'do the right thing' being a bad thing
+
+with particularly the first point ending up putting more work on community coordinators/managers.
+
+Generally there was an agreement that LLMs are here to stay, and we cannot avoid them.
+
+But there was a feeling we need to at least make a statement on our stance on them and possibly a policy document.
+
+# Goals
+
+- Make clear when LLM code or related things are (generally) acceptable within nf-core
+- Make clear what the consequences of abusing these guidelines are
+
+# Non-Goals
+
+- To enforce AI usage on the community
+- To ban AI usage
+- To implement mechanisms for the use of AI
+
+# Detailed Design
+
+The discusson on the initial RFC issue pointed towards a general statement as a blog post, that can be called out in various documents - where required.
+
+A blog post acts as a position piece, but also allows a bit of flexibility as a non-static thing (can change over time), as new blog posts can be made with justification about changing stances (if required).
+
+# Drawbacks
+
+None noted.
+
+# Alternatives
+
+None noted.
+
+# Adoption strategy
+
+- [x] Made a blog post statement: https://github.com/nf-core/website/pull/3705
+- [x] Link to contribution documentation (e.g.: https://nf-co.re/docs/contributing/how_to_contribute_to_nf-core, and `CONTRIBUTING.md` on github repo): https://github.com/nf-core/website/pull/4166
+
+# Unresolved Questions
+
+- Any other places we should link to in the documentation?
+
+# References
+
+- https://github.com/nf-core/proposals/issues/61
+- https://github.com/nf-core/website/pull/3705