From 1b9f965b659d9391c0b31da8cbcbcce4ab9920d8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adrian Chaves <adrian@zyte.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:39:30 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Clarify the user implact of the AutoThrottle change

---
 docs/news.rst | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/docs/news.rst b/docs/news.rst
index 05c6cbba9..45567f324 100644
--- a/docs/news.rst
+++ b/docs/news.rst
@@ -135,7 +135,8 @@ Backward-incompatible changes
 
 -   :ref:`AutoThrottle <topics-autothrottle>` no longer sets the
     ``download_delay`` attribute of the running spider to define the starting
-    delay of download slots.
+    delay of download slots. The starting delay is still applied, but code
+    that reads that attribute at run time no longer sees it.
     (:issue:`7167`, :issue:`7175`, :issue:`7833`)
 
 -   :class:`~scrapy.spiders.XMLFeedSpider` and