What Is An Agents MD File.mp4

What Is An Agents MD File

Commits:

# Start the lesson — comments system from the previous lesson in place
pnpm reset 03.08.02
pnpm cherry-pick 03.08.02
# See solution — CLAUDE.md with steering instructions added
pnpm reset 04.01.01
pnpm cherry-pick 04.01.01

Have you ever felt concerned about the size of your AGENTS.md file?

Maybe you should be. A bad AGENTS.md file can confuse your agent, become a maintenance nightmare, and cost you tokens on every request.

So you'd better know how to fix it.

What is AGENTS.md?

An AGENTS.md file is a markdown file you check into Git that customizes how AI coding agents behave in your repository. It sits at the top of the conversation history, right below the system prompt.

Think of it as a configuration layer between the agent's base instructions and your actual codebase. The file can contain two types of guidance:

• Personal scope: Your commit style preferences, coding patterns you prefer
• Project scope: What the project does, which package manager you use, your architecture decisions

The AGENTS.md file is an open standard supported by many - though not all - tools.

<details> <summary>CLAUDE.md</summary>

Notably, Claude Code doesn't use AGENTS.md - it uses CLAUDE.md instead. You can symlink between them to keep all your tools working the same way:

# Create a symlink from AGENTS.md to CLAUDE.md
ln -s AGENTS.md CLAUDE.md

</details>

Why Massive AGENTS.md Files are a Problem

There's a natural feedback loop that causes AGENTS.md files to grow dangerously large:

1. The agent does something you don't like