Lisp Against the (LL)Machine

Can you Lisp without being strapped in to the Torment Nexus Machine?

As of 2026-04-22

….

sort of.

Every Lisp, Scheme, and Lisp-adjacent project listed is a non-toy implementation that is at least somewhat active. When I first wrote this article (2026-03-12), most Lisps did not have a policy or publicly stated stance on LLM contributions whatsoever. In such cases I posted to their bug trackers or discussion lists to ask. Most maintainers kindly responded.

Every link is either a document/issue stating the project's LLM policy, or a link to an open issue. Roughly categorized according to how strongly for or against LLM contributions.

Strictly Against

• Fennel
• STklos Scheme
• Clojure
• ECL

Strongly Against

• Loko Scheme

Weakly Against

• Janet exception given for tests and bug reproductions
• GNU CLISP against on a specific reading of copyright law
• Emacs Lisp temporarily against LLMs, waiting for official policy
• Hy maintainer recommends against LLM contributions, no actual policy

Hesitantly Accepting

• Chicken Scheme
• Chibi Scheme
• Cyclone Scheme
• Gambit
• Gauche
• Gerbil Scheme LLM generated code potentially in source tree
• Clasp open issue
• CCL open issue

Accepting

• Bigloo
• Coalton
• Jank
• Kawa Scheme
• Sagittarius Scheme
• Racket LLM generated code in source tree
• SBCL LLM generated code in source tree
• Carp LLM generated code in source tree

Unknown

• Chez Scheme at least one maintainer is against, another skeptical, open issue
• Guile Scheme likely against, but nothing officially stated, open issue
• MIT Scheme open issue
• ABCL open issue
• LFE open issue