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AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents

agents.md

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

#381

Post by cyanydeez »

p1necone wrote: post #159
numpy-thagoras wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be open to sharing this here?

Here you go: # ASCII RPG This repo uses Rust + Bevy (0.16.1), multi-crate workspace, RON assets, and a custom ASCII UI. The rules below keep contributions consistent, testable, and verifiable. ## Quick rules (read me first) - Read/update CURRENT_TASK.md each step; delete when done. - Build/lint/test (fish): cargo check --workspace; and cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings; and cargo test --workspace…

I'd bet if you want the AI to use this effectively, it would do better to summarize the key programming related points at the end.

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

#382

Post by cyanydeez »

_ache_ wrote: post #215
theshrike79 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context is not infinite. Saving context for what matters is key in working with LLMs.

Context is not infinite yet. New standard for something that maybe false very soon is just a bad idea.

Until LLMs deal with context as a graph and not just a linear order of vectors, it won't matter the amount of context you shove down it's processors, it's always going to suffer from near-sighted processing of the last bits. To generate true intelligence it needs to be able to jump to specific locations without the interceding vectors affecting it's route.

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

#383

Post by cyanydeez »

theshrike79 wrote: post #225
_ache_ wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context is not infinite yet. New standard for something that maybe false very soon is just a bad idea.

We all want to move to local models eventually for privacy and reliability. They don't (and won't) have infinite context without trickery or massive €€€ use. The current crop of online LLMs are just running on VC money slightly tapered with subscriptions - but still at a loss. The hype and money will run out, so use them as much as possible now. But also keep your workflows so that they will work locally when the tim…

I don't see how anyone could make a successful product build on cloud LLMs, even if you get a perfect workflow, you'll either be gouged with price rises, or lose out to model changes and context/prompt divergence. All this "prompt" nonsense is simply trying to play to the LLM audience, and no amount of imprecise prompt will negate the fundamental instability.

So yeah, you have to use a localLLM if you think there's a viable product to be had. Anyone whose been programming knows that once you get to the mile mark of a complete & finished project, it can be mothballed for decades generating utility and requiring limited maintenance. All that goes out the window if you require a cloud provider to remain stable for a decade.

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

#384

Post by selcuka »

pacifika wrote: post #158
meander_water wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point of having it hidden though. Having it "in your face" means you can actively tune it yourself, or using the LLM itself.

Webservers convention not to serve hidden files

RFC 5785 (/.well-known/) breaks this convention, but sure, you are right in general.

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

#385

Post by lemming »

bix6 wrote: post #316
lemming wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are incorrect as they do not have a remote human operator Yes, they do, the term to search is “remote assistance operator”. e.g. https://philkoopman.substack.com/p/all-robotaxis-have-remote...

That’s phone a friend not someone remotely driving the car

That’s irrelevant though. If the system requires human intervention, then it’s not fully autonomous by definition. See https://rodneybrooks.com/predictions-scorecard-2025-january-... for example:

The companies do not advertise this feature out loud too much, but they do acknowledge it, and the reports are that it happens somewhere between every one to two miles traveled.

That’s… not very autonomous.

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

#386

Post by oehpr »

dingnuts wrote: post #352
oehpr wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most effective argument I have for getting other developers to comment their code is "The agent will read it and it will give better suggestions". Truly perverse, but it works. I agree with you... but the reality is that there's a wide contingent of people that are not capable of understanding "people don't know the same things as me". So they need some other reason.

several ironies here: 1) an AI agent is less likely to notice than even a junior is when the docs are out of date from the code 2) AI boosters are always talking about using language models to understand code, but apparently they need the code explained inline? are we AGI yet? 3) I frequently hear how great AI is at writing comments! But it needs comments to better understand the code? So I guess to enable agentic co…

Well... Yah. For the record I'm saying this to trick humans into making better comments for humans. It is very difficult to convince people to do this otherwise, in my experience.

buuut...

I will also mention that these agent files are typically generated by agents. And they're pretty good at it. I've previously used agents to dissect unfamiliar code bases in unfamiliar languages and it has worked spectacularly well. Far far FAR better than I could have done on my own.

I have also been shocked at how dumb they can be. They are uselessly stupid at their worst, but brilliant at their best.

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

#387

Post by iknowstuff »

lsaferite wrote: post #285
iknowstuff wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those particular signs are just stupid. The street should be redesigned with traffic calming, narrowing and chicanes so that speeding is not possible. Slapping on a sign is ineffective

Maybe for new schools. Old schools don't have the luxury of being able to force adjacent road design changes in most cases. Also. I've frequently seen the school zones extended out in several directions away from the school to make heavily trafficked intersections feeding towards the school safer. Safer for pedestrian and motorist alike. The real world is generally never so black and white. We have to deal with that…

Of course they can. Streets get redesigned all the time. They get repaved every couple decades at worst.

I’m saying this because it seemed silly to me to be dreaming up some weird system of QR codes or LLM readable speed limits instead of simply making the street follow best practices which change how humans drive for the better _today_.

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

#388

Post by chrismorgan »

sergiotapia wrote: post #304
chrismorgan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/blob/main/instal... That’s insane . 3000 words of prose boilerplate about the language and framework . Sounds like you need, at the very least, some sort of import directive. I have no idea if “Read and follow the instructions in path/to/phoenixframework/AGENTS.md.” would work. And then the eclectic mixture of instructions with a variety of ways of trying to bully an intran…

Works great, why the _ugh_ Ultimately that's what matters.

If you’re not intended to alter it, we have a technique for such things: links, so that it can be maintained independently.

If you are intended to alter it… 3,000 words of prose is awful, fuzzy and wildly imprecise.

If you’re expected to add to it before and/or after, which I imagine you are, that’s even worse, whether you’re expected to modify the provided block or not.

If it was like Linux config is often done, with a /etc/thing-name.d/ directory containing files that will be applied in name order (leading to the common convention of two digit numbers: 10-somethingearly.conf, 50-usersomething.conf, 90-quitelate.conf), it might make sense—you just have your 10-phoenixframework.md. But when it’s just one file… well, y’know, there’s a reason we don’t normally maintain huge projects in a single file, even if some projects like to be able to be distributed in that way and have a build process to squish all their source code into one file (e.g. SQLite, Flask).

I’m not denying that it may work to vastly improve LLM performance, but I am absolutely saying that this is horrifying, in the amount of nonsense required, but still more in the way it’s being delivered.

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

#389

Post by [deleted] »

CharlesW wrote: post #36

This should've been an .agents¹ with an index.md. For tiny, throwaway projects, a monolithic .md file is fine. A folder allows more complex projects to use "just enough hierarchy" to provide structure, with index.md as the entry point. Along with top-level universal guidance, it can include an organization guide (easily maintained with the help of LLMs). index.md ├── auth.md ├── performance.md ├── code_quality ├── da…

[deleted]

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

#390

Post by witx »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #310

> build steps, tests, and conventions that might clutter a README or aren’t relevant to human contributors. what in fresh hell is the world coming to

Devs are just being trolled into documenting their code. But because it's AI they are hyping it
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