llms.txt
# AI-DECLARATION.md
> The most popular machine-readable open standard for declaring how much AI was involved in building a software project. A project adds an `AI-DECLARATION.md` file to its repository stating an overall involvement level, and optionally a breakdown by process and by component.
A declaration is a claim by the project author. Nobody verifies, audits, or certifies it, and listing in the Directory is not an endorsement. The point is transparency: a reader who knows which parts were generated can go and check exactly those parts, and an author can show their planning work alongside their code.
The declaration is machine-readable by design: plain Markdown with YAML front matter, followed by a required `## Notes` section for human context. The same file is readable by a person and parseable by a tool, with no separate manifest to keep in sync. At minimum it needs `version`, `level`, and those notes. `processes` and `components` are optional, and the global `level` must be the highest level present among them. Any process not listed is implicitly `none`.
Levels combine the verbs *act* and *prompt* with the entities *Human*, *AI*, and *task*, and cover review and design as well as code generation:
- `none`: Human acts on the task alone with no AI involvement.
- `hint`: Human acts on the task and the AI surfaces suggestions passively.
- `assist`: Human prompts and the AI acts on a part of the task.
- `pair`: Human prompts as both human and AI act on the task equally; the human understands internals clearly.
- `copilot`: Human prompts and AI acts on the whole task, prompting the human for permission or clarification.
- `auto`: Human prompts and AI acts autonomously, bringing the task to completion.
Processes name the phase of work a level applies to:
- `design`: Architecture, system design, and decision-making.
- `implementation`: Writing production code.
- `testing`: Writing tests, test plans, and quality assurance.
- `documentation`: Writing docs, comments, READMEs, and changelogs.
- `review`: Code review and pull request feedback.
- `deployment`: CI/CD configuration, infrastructure, and release scripts.
`components` maps file paths or directories to a level, using the same six values. Every field is drawn from a closed vocabulary, which is what makes a declaration machine-readable rather than prose to be interpreted.
A minimal declaration:
```markdown
---
version: "0.1.2"
level: copilot
processes:
implementation: copilot
testing: assist
---
This format is based on [AI-DECLARATION.md](https://ai-declaration.md/en/0.1.2).
## Notes
- Architecture and review were human. Implementation was AI-driven and reviewed.
```
The file was previously named `CANDOR.md`, and that name is still recognised by the tooling.
## Specification
- [Specification v0.1.2 (English)](https://ai-declaration.md/en/0.1.2/): the full standard in English
- [Specification v0.1.2 (Korean)](https://ai-declaration.md/ko/0.1.2/): the full standard in Korean
- [Specification v0.1.2 (Brazilian Portuguese)](https://ai-declaration.md/pt-br/0.1.2/): the full standard in Brazilian Portuguese
- [Specification v0.1.2 (Chinese)](https://ai-declaration.md/zh/0.1.2/): the full standard in Chinese
## Tools
- [Validate](https://ai-declaration.md/validate/): paste a declaration and check it against the specification
- [Directory](https://ai-declaration.md/directory/): public GitHub repositories that publish a declaration
- [API](https://ai-declaration.md/api/): read-only JSON API to detect and validate declarations as machine-readable output, no key required
- [API reference](https://ai-declaration.md/api/openapi.json): OpenAPI document for the endpoints above
- [ai-declaration Reddit bot](https://developers.reddit.com/apps/ai-declaration/): comments on Reddit posts with what a linked repository declares
## Resources
- [yujqiao/ai-declare](https://github.com/yujqiao/ai-declare): agent skill that generates an `AI-DECLARATION.md` for a project
- [DimwitLabs/ai-declare](https://github.com/DimwitLabs/ai-declare): fork of the above that reads the specification and validates through the [API](https://ai-declaration.md/api/)
## Policies
- [Terms of Use](https://ai-declaration.md/terms/): MIT licensed, no account, no warranty
- [Privacy Policy](https://ai-declaration.md/privacy/): no cookies, no analytics, no trackers
## Optional
- [Source repository](https://github.com/DimwitLabs/AI-DECLARATION.md): specification, website, and API source
- [Sitemap](https://ai-declaration.md/sitemap.xml): every indexable page
- [Specification v0.1.1](https://ai-declaration.md/en/0.1.1/): superseded, kept for projects that declare against it
- [Specification v0.1.0](https://ai-declaration.md/en/0.1.0/): superseded, kept for projects that declare against it
