News · 2026-09-12

Google's Artemis phone agent shipped Minitap's open-source code with the authors' names swapped out. Credit arrived after a complaint.

Google's open-source Artemis project, an AI agent that automates Android phones, was released in August containing code and agent instructions from mobile-use, an Apache-licensed project by the startup Minitap, without crediting it. Minitap's chief executive published the evidence on 11 September 2026, including a Git history showing the original author names had been replaced. Within hours, a commit to Google's repository added credit to Minitap in the README and in file headers.

Key facts

• 228 of 229 files in Artemis's first public commit were identical to a second commit made ten minutes later; the only change was the package's author list, from three Minitap engineers to a single account.
• When: Artemis was published on GitHub on 13 August 2026. Minitap's post went up on 11 September, and credit was added at 02:59 UTC on 12 September.
• Who: Minitap chief executive Nicolas Dehandschoewercker, and Google's google/artemis repository, which has more than 3,500 stars.
• Primary source: Minitap's post and the repository's public commit history.

"We wrote this"

Artemis describes itself as a tool that "turns natural-language instructions into reliable Android automation," one of a growing class of AI agents that operate apps by looking at the screen and tapping. Minitap built a similar open-source agent, mobile-use, before moving its product to a closed version.

Dehandschoewercker says his team recognised their work at once. "Parts of the code for connecting to Android devices matched our implementation exactly," he wrote. "The Hopper agent's instructions were identical, word for word." Hopper was a name one Minitap engineer picked because he likes Minecraft. An example that sends Happy New Year messages to Alice, Bob and Charlie was copied too, down to the comments, and older versions of both projects shared the same bug.

What the history shows

The more pointed evidence is in the package file. "An earlier package file listed Pierre-Louis Favreau, Jean-Pierre Lo, and Nicolas Dehandschoewercker," Dehandschoewercker wrote. "The version that replaced it removed all three names and substituted another author."

Ground Truth checked the public record. Artemis's first commit, authored under a google.com address on 13 August, carries the same version number, 3.6.3, and the same three Minitap authors as mobile-use's own 3.6.3 release, under a "Copyright 2026 Google LLC" header. A second root commit ten minutes later is identical across 228 of its 229 files; only the author list differs, now naming a GitHub account that commits with an outlook.com address.

Imagine borrowing a colleague's report, changing only the name on the cover, and filing it under your department's letterhead.

What the licence requires

The legal question turns on the Apache License 2.0, which mobile-use adopted in January, before Artemis existed. It lets anyone reuse, modify and even sell the code, but section 4 sets conditions: redistributors "must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work," and modified files must "carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files." If the original includes a NOTICE file, a readable copy of its attributions must travel with the new work.

mobile-use shipped such a NOTICE file. Artemis's first release had none, and no credit in its README. Minitap is careful not to overclaim: its own NOTICE adds a request for prominent credit that it calls "a request, not a legal requirement."

The fix, and what is still missing

A public GitHub issue titled "Missing attribution to mobile-use and its contributors" was opened on 11 September. That evening a commit added a NOTICE crediting mobile-use; it was reverted hours later with the note "Please do not submit unrelated docs and codes in the same commit." A replacement commit then added headers to about 20 files stating "Portions of this file are derived from mobile-use," and the README now ends: "This project includes source code developed by Minitap, Inc." The repository still has no NOTICE file, the agent is still called Hopper, and Google has made no public statement.

Why it matters

Open source runs on a trade: share your work freely, and it travels with your name on it. As AI agents make it faster than ever to absorb and repackage other people's code, that trade is under pressure, a theme in Ground Truth's coverage of open source under AI pressure. "If even a release from Google means maintainers have to chase their own attribution, we are making it harder for people to feel good about sharing," Dehandschoewercker wrote. The Hacker News thread drew more than 20 comments.

The caveat

Nothing public shows how the code entered Artemis or who decided to change the author list, and the second committer's identity is unknown. Artemis also contains its own engineering work, which Minitap acknowledges. Its claimed "99%+" success rate on the AndroidWorld phone-task benchmark is self-reported, as are Minitap's own scores.

Primary source, verified: read the paper →

Ground Truth. (2026, September 12). Google's Artemis phone agent shipped Minitap's open-source code with the authors' names swapped out. Credit arrived after a complaint.. Ground Truth. https://groundtruth.day/news/googles-artemis-reused-minitaps-open-source-code-and-added-credit-after-a-complaint.html

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  title  = {Google's Artemis phone agent shipped Minitap's open-source code with the authors' names swapped out. Credit arrived after a complaint.},
  author = {{Ground Truth}},
  year   = {2026},
  month  = {sep},
  url    = {https://groundtruth.day/news/googles-artemis-reused-minitaps-open-source-code-and-added-credit-after-a-complaint.html}
}

Topics: open-source · licensing · google · agents · attribution · mobile-automation