AGENTS.md – Open format for guiding coding agents (agents.md)

Article summary

The article introduces AGENTS.md, an open format for guiding coding agents, which provides a dedicated place for instructions and context to help AI coding agents work on a project. AGENTS.md is intended to complement README.md files, which are geared towards human contributors. The format is designed to be simple and predictable, allowing agents to easily find the information they need. Over 60k open-source projects are already using AGENTS.md.

Main themes

• Coding agents
• AI development
• Project documentation
• README.md
• Open formats
• Collaboration

What commenters say

• Separating AGENTS.md from README.md is unnecessary and may lead to duplication of information.
• AGENTS.md is a useful format for providing specific instructions to coding agents without cluttering the README.md file.
• Some argue that AGENTS.md should not contain personal preferences, but rather project conventions and guidelines.
• Others believe that AGENTS.md is redundant and that the same information could be included in the CONTRIBUTING.md file or other existing documentation.
• The use of AGENTS.md can help manage context and avoid misunderstandings when working with coding agents.
• Including negative assertions in AGENTS.md can lead to unintended consequences and should be avoided in favor of positive assertions.
• The format of AGENTS.md is not complex and can be useful for standardizing instructions for coding agents across different projects.
• Some developers find it helpful to keep AGENTS.md separate from README.md to avoid overwhelming human contributors with technical details.