Authorship Tags

A small, parseable convention for describing the provenance of a published work.

Summary

Authorship Tags are compact strings that communicate how a work was produced with respect to AI involvement. Here, a work means the final thing being shared: an essay, image, video, song, document, code sample, post, or other creative or informational output.

They are designed to be:

human-readable
machine-parseable
unbranded and portable
descriptive, not prescriptive

Format

A<level>[-<modifier><modifier>...]

A — fixed prefix (Authorship)
<level> — single digit 0–3
- — optional separator
<modifier> — one or more lowercase letters

Examples:

A0
A0-r
A1-re
A2-c

Levels

A0 — Human Authored

Final work created by a human. No AI-generated material is included.

Allowed:

spelling and grammar tools
search and retrieval
non-generative tooling

A1 — AI Assisted

AI used during the creation process, such as ideation, outlining, mockups, references, or suggestions. Final work created by a human.

A2 — AI Contributed

AI-generated material appears in the final published work. Human authors curated, edited, or arranged the result.

A3 — AI Generated

The majority of the final work was generated by AI. Human role is primarily selection or arrangement.

Modifiers

Modifiers provide optional detail about how AI was used.

They are:

lowercase
appended after -
unordered

Defined modifiers

r — research / retrieval
e — editing suggestions
t — translation
c — code generation
d — data analysis

Examples:

A0-r      # human-authored, AI used for research
A1-re     # assisted with research and editing
A2-c      # AI contributed code/content

Modifiers are optional. Omit them if unnecessary.

Interpretation Rules

Final artifact rule The tag reflects what appears in the final published work, not the full creation process.
Survival rule If AI-generated material remains in the final work, the level is at least A2.
Replacement rule If AI outputs were fully replaced and do not appear in the final work, they do not elevate the level beyond A1.
Baseline tools Basic spelling and grammar tools do not change A0.

Usage

Authorship Tags can be placed anywhere appropriate:

Inline:

A0-r

With description:

A1-re — AI Assisted (research, editing)

Footer:

Authorship: A2

Non-goals

Authorship Tags do not:

evaluate quality
imply correctness or truth
prescribe acceptable use of AI
enforce policy

They describe provenance only.

Examples

Scenario	Tag
Fully human-created work, AI used for search	`A0-r`
AI helped outline, author created the final work	`A1`
AI-generated passage, image, clip, or code included	`A2`
AI-generated draft lightly edited by human	`A3`

Status

This is a minimal, evolving convention. Refinements should preserve simplicity and backwards compatibility.