Re: [PATCH 0/9] Kernel API Specification Framework

On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:18:22 -0700
Jakub Kicinski [off-list ref] wrote:

On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:09:10 -0400 Sasha Levin wrote:

quoted

This enables static analysis tools to verify userspace API usage at compile
time, test generation based on formal specifications, consistent error handling
validation, automated documentation generation, and formal verification of
kernel interfaces.  

Could you give some examples? We have machine readable descriptions for
Netlink interfaces, we approached syzbot folks and they did not really
seem to care for those.

The whole thing reminds me of doxygen comment blocks.
They tend to make it hard to read the source files, hard to search
the source files (due to all the extra matches) and are pretty much
always out of date.

The kerndoc comment blocks for trivial helper functions are hard enough
to keep up to date.

The only way even parameter descriptions are going to stay correct is if the
compiler is using the definition and only the comment part is extra.
For error returns you'll need the documentation to be at the return site.

	David