Software Engineering Guide Intellectual Property and Git: Avoiding AI Co-authored-by Due Diligence AI Agents Git Hooks Maintaining a 100% human history is key to the legal health of your source code. "A golden rule in modern development: the commit message should reflect 'why' the change was made for the business, never 'how' or which tools were used to write it. " 1 Legal Context: Why the Concern? More and more startups and independent developers are facing an invisible problem: patent and copyright offices in the US and EU have determined that AI cannot hold copyrights . Only human creation is protectable. The Danger in Audits (Due Diligence): When a startup seeks investment or is about to be acquired, it undergoes a strict code audit. If the Git history shows bots as co-authors, investors can argue the ...