Isn't the promise of AI that we don't have to adhere to precise formats? We can just write it down in whatever format makes the most sense to us, and any impedance mismatch is on the machine to figure out?
AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
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Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#12Isn't the promise of AI that we don't have to adhere to precise formats? We can just write it down in whatever format makes the most sense to us, and any impedance mismatch is on the machine to figure out?
Just the filename is standardized. The contents aren't, which is exactly right. From the site:
> Are there required fields?
> No. AGENTS.md is just standard Markdown. Use any headings you like; the agent simply parses the text you provide.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#13We're in a transition phase today where agents need special guidance to understand a codebase that go beyond what humans need. Before long, I don't think they will. I think we should focus on our own project documentation being comprehensive (e.g. the contents of this AGENTS.md are appropriate to live somewhere in our documentation), but we should always write for humans.
The LLM's whole shtick is that it can read and comprehend our writing, so let's architect for it at that level.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#14Make sure to check out https://agent-rules.org/ as well for more background on this initiative. More and more tools are adopting the standard.
Amp used to have an "RFC 9999" article on their website for this as well but the link now appears to be broken.
You can symlink your Cursor / Windsurf / whatever rules to AGENTS.md for backwards compatibility.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#15I'm still not convinced that separating README.md and AGENTS.md is a good idea.
It is. README is for humans, AGENTS / etc is for LLMs. Document how to use and install your tool in the readme. Document how to compile, test, architecture decisions, coding standards, repository structure etc in the agents doc.
Compile, test, architecture would be very welcome in the readme too Id wager
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#16Make sure to check out https://agent-rules.org/ as well for more background on this initiative. More and more tools are adopting the standard. Amp used to have an "RFC 9999" article on their website for this as well but the link now appears to be broken. You can symlink your Cursor / Windsurf / whatever rules to AGENTS.md for backwards compatibility.
That draft RFC you mention is superseded by https://agents.md. Now that Amp uses AGENTS.md (https://x.com/sqs/status/1957945824404729997), I made all the former agent file stuff on https://ampcode.com just redirect to https://agents.md.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#17I think this is a good thing - I would like to see the same pattern standardized for the memory system of all the different agents.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#18Make sure to check out https://agent-rules.org/ as well for more background on this initiative. More and more tools are adopting the standard. Amp used to have an "RFC 9999" article on their website for this as well but the link now appears to be broken. You can symlink your Cursor / Windsurf / whatever rules to AGENTS.md for backwards compatibility.
That draft RFC you mention is superseded by https://agents.md . Now that Amp uses AGENTS.md ( https://x.com/sqs/status/1957945824404729997 ), I made all the former agent file stuff on https://ampcode.com just redirect to https://agents.md .
Gotcha - this is what I had in my history: https://ampcode.com/AGENT.md
For me, that gives a 404 with no obvious way to get to https://agents.md, I think either a hyperlink or redirect would be nice to have as well.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#19We're in a transition phase today where agents need special guidance to understand a codebase that go beyond what humans need. Before long, I don't think they will. I think we should focus on our own project documentation being comprehensive (e.g. the contents of this AGENTS.md are appropriate to live somewhere in our documentation), but we should always write for humans. The LLM's whole shtick is that it can read an…
It's not just understanding the codebase, it's also stylistic things, like "use this assert library to write tests", or "never write comments", or "use structured logging". It's just as useful --- more so even --- on fresh projects without much code.
Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents
#20We're in a transition phase today where agents need special guidance to understand a codebase that go beyond what humans need. Before long, I don't think they will. I think we should focus on our own project documentation being comprehensive (e.g. the contents of this AGENTS.md are appropriate to live somewhere in our documentation), but we should always write for humans. The LLM's whole shtick is that it can read an…
It's not just understanding the codebase, it's also stylistic things, like "use this assert library to write tests", or "never write comments", or "use structured logging". It's just as useful --- more so even --- on fresh projects without much code.
... most of which would also be valuable information to communicate when onboarding new devs.