AGENTS.md: The One File That Makes AI Coding Agents Actually Useful

Short summary

AGENTS.md is a standardized markdown file at repository root that briefs AI coding agents on project context, build commands, testing, conventions, and guardrails. A good AGENTS.md is short, current, specific, and actionable—balancing between thin documentation and rambling guides. Maintain it like production code, update when reality changes, and treat agent questions as signals for missing documentation.

• •AGENTS.md is an agent-specific alternative to README.md, now standardized by the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation
• •Essential sections: one-line orientation, setup commands, test commands, file structure, conventions, and explicit guardrails
• •Quality depends on brevity and specificity; too thin fails to help, too long gets skimmed; treat it as production code requiring reviews

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.