VS Code enables AI co-author attribution in git commits by default
Microsoft merged a small but incendiary change into VS Code this week.
PR #310226 modifies just two lines across two files, changing the default of git.addAICoAuthor from "off" to "all". The effect: whenever you commit code through VS Code’s built-in Git integration, the commit message will automatically include a Co-authored-by: GitHub Copilot line if Copilot assisted in the session.
The setting has three tiers: off (no attribution), chatAndAgent (only for copilot chat and agent interactions), and all (all AI-assisted edits). Users who want to opt out must now manually toggle it off.
The reaction was swift and brutal. At the time of merge, the PR had collected 2 👍 and 372 👎 — a 186-to-1 negative ratio. The core complaint is straightforward: defaulting AI attribution on is a judgment call about what constitutes a meaningful contribution, and many developers reject the premise outright. Copilot autocomplete suggestions, they argue, are not equivalent to human co-authorship, and littering commit logs with bot signatures dilutes the “Co-authored-by” convention.
Compounding the frustration, the PR was submitted with no description explaining the rationale — no RFC, no design doc, no community discussion. Just a silent default flip.
From Microsoft’s perspective, the move makes product sense: it raises Copilot’s visibility and builds an audit trail of AI-assisted contributions. But as a default-setting decision, it fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between trust and consent in developer tooling.