Jellyfin LLM/"AI" Development Policy

Summary

Jellyfin LLM/"AI" Development Policy The rise of LLMs as a useful development tool over the last year or so has been significant. The power and flexibility of tools like Claude Code and ChatGPT have given a lot of functionality both to experienced developers and new developers alike. But there are trade-offs. The Jellyfin project has, from day one, had a major focus on code quality - readability, simplicity, conciseness. This is a mostly manual effort driven by a dedicated team of individuals, and is motivated by a desire to fix the code Jellyfin is based off of which, without beating a dead horse too much, was extremely fragile, spaghettified, and prone to over-engineered complexity. We are seeing a precipitous rise in contributors using AI within the Jellyfin ecosystem, both in the server and for clients, as well as a rise in criticism and concern about LLMs generally. At this time we are writing this policy to address exactly what we expect and desire with respect to contributions and interactions within our community that may use LLMs. These rules apply to all of our official projects and community spaces. General Guidelines​ LLM output is expressly prohibited for any direct communication, including the following: issues or comments feature requests or comments pull request bodies or comments forum/chat/etc. posts or comments In short, if you are posting any of those things, the output must be your own words, explanation, description, etc., not a verbatim dump of an LLM's output. We expect you to understand what you're posting. Violating this rule will result in closure/deletion of the offending item(s). An exception will be made for LLM-assisted translations if you are having trouble accurately conveying your intent in English. Please explicitly note this ("I have translated this from MyLanguage with an LLM") and, if possible, post in your original language as well. LLM code contributions are subject to more granularity below, but the general principle is that ...