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AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

agents.md

241–250 of 398 posts

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so it doesn't clash with any project that actually has a functional `agents/` directory

Another reason to use a src/ directory for the actual source code.

These files also generally work in a nested fashion, like .gitignore and the like. So you want something that can be injected into the namespace of any directory in your project with relatively low likelihood of conflicts.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#242
I was thinking about this too, but the problem is that different models need to be prompted differently for better performance.

Claude is the best model for tool calling, you might need to prompt less reliable models differently. Prompt engineering is really hard, a single context for all models will never be the best IMO.

This is why Claude Code is so much better than any other agentic coding tool, because they know the model very well and there is an insane amount of prompt engineering went into it.

I tried GPT-5 with OpenCode thinking that it will be just as good, but it was terrible.

Model-specific prompt engineering makes a huge difference!

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#243

We'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…

Not at all. Good documentation for humans are working well for models too, but they need so much more details and context to be reliable than humans that it needs a different style of description.

This needs to contain things that you would never write for humans. They also do stupid things which need to be adjusted by these descriptions.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#245
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that there are other metrics people are optimizing for nowadays? Perhaps typeability, screen real estate, familiarity/convention, etc.? Do you really want /User Files/Bob's Files/Coding Projects/Python Projects/Bob's Cool Python Library/Source Code/Model Files/SomeObject.py?

1. Yes, I have, if you re-read my comment. 2. I don't want to fight extreme positions which I did not make. Read this: https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html I didn't say paths have to have spaces, etc. Just be reasonable and >.

The first shell listing starts with `cd` and `ls`, the former being run in `~`. What does that weird `~` mean? Very strange.

More seriously, their file system is still case-sensitive, and inside /Programs they have `Iptables` and `Fontconfig`, naively capitalized, but also `OpenOffice` and `HTTPD`.

Not to mention that inside each program folder are `man` and `bin` as usual. I'm going to suggest the point of that article is structure and organization, not naming.

Nobody reasonable complains about a three-letter abbreviation you can type with one hand. For a path you're either accessing a lot or never at all, it makes complete sense.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#246
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or accept the fact that we're in 2025 and not follow Unix conventions from when paper and printer ink were expensive and they were printing out listings, and just name the thing "source". I've gotten used to it, obviously - as someone with a career in IT for 20 years - but /etc & co. annoy me to no end. I know it will never change, I know why it won't change, I know GoboLinux will be just an interesting experiment, b…

Have you considered that there are other metrics people are optimizing for nowadays? Perhaps typeability, screen real estate, familiarity/convention, etc.? Do you really want /User Files/Bob's Files/Coding Projects/Python Projects/Bob's Cool Python Library/Source Code/Model Files/SomeObject.py?

While we're at this, let's make it rich text please. I want the important filenames to be in bold italic Comic Sans MS.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#247
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that there are other metrics people are optimizing for nowadays? Perhaps typeability, screen real estate, familiarity/convention, etc.? Do you really want /User Files/Bob's Files/Coding Projects/Python Projects/Bob's Cool Python Library/Source Code/Model Files/SomeObject.py?

1. Yes, I have, if you re-read my comment. 2. I don't want to fight extreme positions which I did not make. Read this: https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html I didn't say paths have to have spaces, etc. Just be reasonable and >.

Anything with a capital letter requires hitting two keys: Shift and then the desired letter. Thus /Programs requires 10 keystrokes rather than 9. Even worse, since the capital letter is at the beginning of the directory name, I have to type it and am unable to rely on tab-completion.

/Programs with its ten keystrokes is over twice the keystrokes of /bin and its four. Short names are quicker to type and require less effort. Given that to a first approximation I spend my entire life typing on a keyboard, I very much wish to optimise that experience.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#248
post #94
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.well-known/

This. Projects need to stop inventing their own root level files and directories. Stop polluting the root dir. I'm not a fan of the name "well-known", but at least it's a convention [1]. I think it'd be great if we took something like XDG [2] and made it common for repositories, build scripts, package managers, tooling configs, etc. [1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8615 [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_B…

I believe with direnv or a similar tool (e.g. Emacs’s directory-local feature) one can append $REPO/.config to XDG_CONFIG_HOME, $REPO/.local/bin to PATH and so on so that when in the context of a particular directory everything Just Works.

I think all this agentic stuff could live quite happily in $REPO/.config/agents/.

Re: AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

#250

Strange website. It is made by OpenAI. I suppose they are doing this to gain visits and as marketing positioning? There is no format here, just a filename. Also, Anthropic/Claude is a glaring omission. I suppose people can use symbolic links if they want to and point CLAUDE.md at AGENTS.md.

Claude is omitted, because Claude is the only agent that still doesn't support the standard filename convention.
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