[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Plugins and AI Generation

[Admire Nyakudya]

Dear All

The rapid proliferation of AI tools has led to a noticeable increase in 
QGIS plugins being created and uploaded to the registry.

The bonus points for these new plugin are:

  * functionality gaps are being filled faster
  * workflows are consolidated
  * innovation is happening at pace.


However, it also introduces new challenges for the QGIS plugin 
ecosystem, particularly around trust, review, and governance.

While responsibility ultimately lies with end users to decide which 
plugins they trust, the growing use of AI-assisted or AI-generated code 
raises additional concerns beyond those already discussed in recent QGIS 
pull requests/code base related to AI usage.

The plugin approval process relies heavily on volunteer effort and with 
the many plugins being uploaded we have to rely heavily on authors to 
submit high-quality, secure, and maintainable code.

The plugin review process is not focused on code review but does so in 
limited circumstances. End users rely on author reputation, plugin 
ratings— as indicators to trust the plugin quality and usefulness.

To improve transparency and support informed decision-making, it may be 
worth introducing an optional metadata flag in *metadata.txt*, for example:

*ai_derivative = yes*

All existing plugins could default to no, with the flag applied to new 
or updated plugins going forward. This would not act as a quality 
judgement, but rather as a disclosure mechanism, allowing users to 
filter plugins and assess trust based on their own criteria, alongside 
authorship and plugin rating.

Regards

Admire (Active plugin reviewer)

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