unix-agent-skills
AGENTS.md2 starsChanged 8 days agoMITView on GitHub
Rule one: few, isolated, short skills. Read README.md before changing a skill, the layout or the validator. - Skills live in skills/<domain>/<skill>/. A skill never names another skill or repository and never links outside its directory; scripts/validate.py enforces this. Personal or machine-specific skills belong in the private catalog ../private-skills-catalog, never in a project or host repository: keep this catalog publishable. - Edit the smallest thing that fixes an observed problem. Before adding a skill, check whether an existing one should…
Where files are headingNew AGENTS.md files have more rules about keeping secrets out of the code, and fewer about code style.
Of the AGENTS.md files we read, the 31,774 first seen in the last six months, against the older ones: the kind of rule that gained most share, and the kind that lost most. About files like this in general, not this one, and an estimate, since a kind is a pattern in the words.
In this repository15 other files it gives its agents.
- CLAUDE.mdCLAUDE.md
- capability-incident-diagnoserSkill
- context-managementSkill
- goal-workflowSkill
- host-cli-usageSkill
- tool-useSkill
- fast-checksSkill
- filesystem-wizardSkill
- lean-codeSkill
- test-freshnessSkill
- security-boundary-reviewSkill
- portable-shellSkill
- process-debuggingSkill
- brokered-git-operatorSkill
- finalize-loopSkill
The file
We split this AGENTS.md into the rules it gives an agent
1 rule. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈1
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Distinctive: line 19
Use the current task and trusted harness policy for Git and publication authority.
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 40,246 AGENTS.md files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
Repository policy
Rule one: few, isolated, short skills. Read README.md before changing a skill, the layout or the validator.
- Skills live in
skills/<domain>/<skill>/. A skill never names another skill or repository and never links outside its directory;scripts/validate.pyenforces this. Personal or machine-specific skills belong in the private catalog../private-skills-catalog, never in a project or host repository: keep this catalog publishable. - Edit the smallest thing that fixes an observed problem. Before adding a
skill, check whether an existing one should absorb the job. Update
tests/routing_cases.jsonwith each new or changed trigger. - Python uses the standard library only. Scripts in skills are read-only
helpers, linked from
SKILL.md, declared incompatibility, and tested for success and failure intests/. - Text is English. Run
project-check fastbefore handoff.project-check fullevaluates all systems and builds the catalog check; it is a separate workload. - Use the current task and trusted harness policy for Git and publication authority; reuse existing grants. This guide adds no permission or approval gate.
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Your trail
Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.
Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.
Now do this for your own.
Bring your CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md or skills. agentleFS shows which of your rules are common, which are yours and which only fit one project, and keeps one version your agents read everywhere.