Give agents a repo-level instruction file
A plain Markdown file at the repo root telling agents how to build, test and contribute. Nest one per package in monorepos — closest file wins.
WHY IT HOLDS
Agents are individually poor at carrying conventions between sessions. A predictable file location means every agent gets the build, test and style context the moment it starts, and the file is reviewable in a pull request like anything else.
WHAT IT PREVENTS
Agents re-discovering or ignoring project conventions each session.
ADOPTED BY
2 organisationsAGENTS.md, Cloudflare
WHERE PEOPLE DISAGREE
Practitioners report the file gets worse as it grows — several say quality dropped once theirs passed a few hundred lines.
SOURCES
RING HISTORY
RELATED
DOES THE PRACTICE WORK FOR YOU?
Field reports are not open yet. When they are, you will be able to sign in with GitHub and record whether this practice held on your stack — one report per person, so the counts mean something. Nothing is collected here in the meantime.