Hello, Although I am unsure of the rules, I have seen autobots been used a lot through the use of github CI/CD. I do not believe they are explicitly banned, people often automate the bumping of new versions, but it should be tested before being pushed to the AUR, ideally built and tested in a clean chroot. However, the large majority of AUR packages pushed to github use autoupdaters in some capacity, so if they are banned, a lot of housekeeping would need to be done. One of the projects I co-maintain uses a script to autobump the version, but it tests it and also submits it as a PR, it is then manually checked and then merged into master before being pushed to the AUR. Bots should never push to the AUR, whether it is within the guidelines or not, its all fun when you can sit back and be lazy, but once the packaging changes, you have just shipped a broken build to all the people using AUR helpers.
Should they at least test if the package still builds before uploading the package update?
I do not believe you are forced to, but it is definitely a recommendation to build the package in a clean chroot before pushing it to the AUR. Remember the AUR is like a massive landfill, go digging through the rubbish long enough you will find a good package. The TUs are there to sieve through it all and ensure it is kept to some standard (and filter out illegal or malicious content). TL;DR don't expect official repository grade packages within the AUR. I guess some maintainers just want the easy way, -- Polarian GPG signature: 0770E5312238C760 Website: https://polarian.dev JID/XMPP: polarian@polarian.dev