We Stopped AI Bot Spam in Our GitHub Repo Using Git's --author Flag — 480 Points on HN

Hacker News·medium signal

Enterprise AI platform Archestra shared how they defeated AI bot spam flooding their GitHub repository by using Git's --author flag to create a prior-contributor gate with an onboarding whitelist. The approach uses a form, CAPTCHA, and a Git commit authored as the approved user to establish contribution history before public interaction. Context: a $900 bounty issue drew 253 bot comments, and one team member was spending half a day per week cleaning up hallucinated issues and untested PRs — 480 points, 233 comments.