Microsoft reverts Copilot co-author tag

Visual Studio Code is supposed to stay out of your way when you commit code. That’s why this blew up so fast. Microsoft changed a Git setting so VS Code could add `Co-authored-by: Copilot` to commit messages by default, then had to reverse it after developers found Copilot getting credit for work it didn’t do — sometimes even with AI features turned off. The rollback is now headed out in VS Code 1.119, which started public rollout on May 6. (github.com) ### What actually changed? VS Code already had a setting called `git.addAICoAuthor`. It controls whether the editor appends a Git trailer naming Copilot as a co-author. The setting had three modes — `off`, `chatAndAgent`, and `all`. The important part is the default. It used to be `off`. In VS Code 1.117, whose public rol(github.com)github.com) ### Why did developers get so angry? Because this was not just a UI flourish. A `Co-authored-by` line lands in Git history. That means it becomes part of the project’s permanent metadata unless someone rewrites commits later. Developers saw that as an authorship claim, not a harmless hint. One GitHub issue came from a use(github.com)s, yet still found the trailer showing up in logs and CI output without consent. (github.com) ### Was it only happening when Copilot wrote code? No — and that was the core failure. Microsoft said there was a bug that attributed non-Copilot code completions to Copilot. The same update post says commit messages could contain the Copilot trailer even when `disableAIfeatures` was turned on. That turns a debatable prod(github.com)st labeling AI help — it is mislabeling human work. (github.com) ### Didn’t Microsoft already try to soften it? Yes. After the bug surfaced, Microsoft changed the default from `all` to `chatAndAgent` in VS Code 1.118, with public rollout starting April 29. That narrowed when attribution would be added. But it did not address the deeper complaint — that default-on authorship metadata is(github.com)explicitly agreed to it. (github.com) ### So what is Microsoft doing now? It reverted the default back to `off`. Microsoft also said the feature will be disabled whenever `disableAIfeatures` is true, regardless of the co-author setting. And it promised a consent step before any commit trailer gets added in the future, no matter what the default is. Those fixes are part of the 1.119 release. (github.com) ### Why is `Co-authored-by` the wrong label? Because “co-author” suggests shared authorship, which is a loaded claim in software projects. That matters for credit, blame, compliance, and repo policy. Even inside the VS Code discussion, Microsoft pointed to a possible alternative — `Assisted-by` — which better matches what(github.com)an active proposal in the repo to move toward that wording and even include model information instead of pretending the model is a human-like collaborator. (github.com) ### Why does this tiny setting matter so much? Because developer tools sit directly on top of source control, and source control is institutional memory. If an editor silently changes commit metadata, it is touching the audit trail teams use for reviews, incident response, and legal provenance. That is why the backlash wa(github.com)trying to normalize AI credit inside the official history of a codebase. That is a governance issue, not just a product bug. (github.com) ### Bottom line? Microsoft reversed the setting. But the episode exposed a bigger rule for AI coding tools — if you want to mark AI involvement, you need accuracy, consent, and language that matches reality. Miss any one of those, and a one-line commit trailer turns into a fight about trust. (github.com)