copyright-check

---

name: copyright-check description: Verify AMD copyright header compliance on files modified or introduced by ROCm. Checks presence, format, and year correctness. Use whenever reviewing a PR on the ROCm TransformerEngine fork, or when asked to audit copyright headers. argument-hint: [base-branch] [--paths ...] allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep, Bash]

Copyright Header Check

Audits AMD copyright headers on files that ROCm has modified or introduced. The existing qa/L0_license/copyright_checker.py only validates NVIDIA headers — this skill is the AMD-side counterpart.

Arguments

• <base-branch> — diff against this ref (default: dev).
• --paths <glob>... — restrict the check to specific paths. Without this, every file changed in the diff is checked.

Scope detection

Determine the file set to audit:

base="${1:-dev}"
git fetch origin "$base" --quiet
git diff --name-status "origin/$base"...HEAD

• A = added — counts as ROCm-introduced.
• M / R = modified or renamed — counts as ROCm-modified.
• D = deleted — skip.

Skip files that the existing checker also skips (see qa/L0_license/config.json): binaries, 3rdparty/, LICENSE, VERSION, .png, .ipynb, .json, .md, .txt, Dockerfiles, generated files. Also skip files outside these extensions: c, cpp, cu, h, cuh, hpp, hip, py, sh, cmake, yml, yaml, toml, rst, cfg, plus CMakeLists.txt. If a file has none of those, note it as "unchecked filetype" and move on — do not flag.

Header rules

Read the first 15 lines of each in-scope file (headers may sit below a shebang and a coding declaration). The current year is $(date +%Y) — call it Y. Use that value, do not hardcode it.

Comment-style families

Family	Comment marker	File types
hash	#	py, sh, cmake, yml, yaml, toml, cfg, CMakeLists.txt
c-block	/* … */ or //	c, cpp, cu, h, cuh, hpp, hip
rst	.. (indented)	rst

AMD copyright line — required form

<comment> Copyright (c) <YEARS>, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.

where <YEARS> is either Y (single year) or Yfirst-Y (range ending in the current year). Use a regex like:

Copyright \(c\) (\d{4})(-(\d{4}))?, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc\. All rights reserved\.

NVIDIA copyright line — preserved form

<comment> Copyright (c) <YEARS>, NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.

File classification (in scope)

For each file, classify by its post-change content combined with its diff status:

1. ROCm-only file — added by ROCm, no NVIDIA copyright present. Required: AMD copyright. NVIDIA copyright must NOT be added.
2. Modified upstream file — already existed with a NVIDIA copyright before this PR, ROCm is now changing it. Required: BOTH AMD and NVIDIA copyright lines, AMD line first.
3. Already-mixed file — already had both AMD and NVIDIA headers, ROCm is modifying it again. Required: both lines remain; AMD year extended to include Y.
4. Cherry-picked from upstream — added in this PR but contains a NVIDIA copyright (file pulled from upstream NVIDIA TE). Required: NVIDIA copyright preserved verbatim; AMD copyright added only if the cherry-pick included AMD-authored modifications.

To distinguish (1) from (4) on added files: check git log of the upstream remote (origin/upstream-main or whatever upstream tracking branch exists — fall back to checking whether the path exists on origin/main). If unsure, flag as "ambiguous" and let the human decide.

To know whether a modified file had a NVIDIA copyright before the PR:

git show "origin/$base:$path" | head -15 | grep -F "NVIDIA CORPORATION"

Year correctness

For every file in scope, the AMD copyright year must include the current year Y:

• Single year YYYY: must equal Y.
• Range Yfirst-Ylast: Ylast must equal Y. Yfirst must be ≤ Ylast and ≥ the year the AMD copyright was first added (best-effort: git log --diff-filter=A --follow --format=%ad --date=format:%Y -- $path | tail -1).

For NVIDIA copyrights on modified files: the year MUST NOT have been changed by this PR. Compare against git show "origin/$base:$path". ROCm changes do not extend NVIDIA's copyright window.

Recommended-but-optional marker

Files in family (2) often carry the marker line:

<comment> This file was modified for portability to AMDGPU

Treat its absence as a note, not a failure. Its presence makes review easier but is not legally required.

What NOT to flag

• Headers in files outside the diff scope (don't audit the whole tree).
• Stylistic differences (spacing, ordering of unrelated lines).
• The License for AMD contributions = MIT. shorthand line — it's a valid alternative to See LICENSE for license information. for AMD-only files.
• Files in exclude_copyright from qa/L0_license/config.json.

Output format

## Copyright Header Audit: <base>...HEAD

### Summary
| Status | Count |
|---|---:|
| OK | <n> |
| Missing AMD copyright | <n> |
| Stale AMD year | <n> |
| Altered NVIDIA copyright | <n> |
| Ambiguous (needs human review) | <n> |

### Findings

#### <path>:<line>
- **Classification:** <ROCm-only | Modified upstream | Already-mixed | Cherry-pick | Ambiguous>
- **Issue:** <one-line description>
- **Found:**   `<relevant line(s) from the file>`
- **Expected:** `<the line as it should be>`
- **Fix:** <minimal patch — usually a 1-3 line header replacement>

(repeat per finding; group by file)

If everything passes, output All <n> files in scope have correct AMD copyright headers. and stop — no per-file noise.

Notes for re-runs

When this skill is invoked from /claude review on the same PR a second time, prior findings posted by claude[bot] will already exist as inline comments. The orchestrator (the calling workflow) is responsible for deduplication; this skill should always emit the full current set of findings and let the caller decide what to post.