AGENTS.md
A plain-Markdown file of repository-wide working instructions that several coding agents read at the start of a session.
- Published
- Sep 27, 2026
- Checked
- Sep 27, 2026
How far we checked this page
Signed by Ravalika Korthiwada, Sep 27, 2026. Passing one check says nothing about the next.
- FormatNot checkedThe file format was not checked for this page.
- InstallsNot checkedInstallation was not checked for this page.
- LoadsNot checkedLive loading was not checked for this page.
- HelpsNot checkedA with/without task comparison was not run.
AGENTS.md is a plain-Markdown convention, with no required YAML schema, for repository working instructions: setup commands, code style, test conventions. The agents.md project lists Codex, Cursor and GitHub Copilot among the agents that support it, though a listing doesn’t guarantee identical discovery or precedence across them. Codex reads a global ~/.codex/AGENTS.md (or an override file) plus project files from the repository root toward the working directory, with a default combined cap of 32 KiB. OpenAI’s AGENTS.md docs. Claude Code can read AGENTS.md directly from v2.1.277 onward, though by default a project CLAUDE.md or CLAUDE.local.md takes precedence; /config offers settings to change that. Claude Code memory docs.
For example, a root AGENTS.md might say “run the test suite before committing, use two-space indentation”: instructions that apply everywhere in the repository, unlike a SKILL.md, which only applies to the one task it describes and loads only when that task comes up.
We haven’t tested AGENTS.md loading or precedence ourselves in any host as of this writing; this entry reflects each host’s own documentation, checked September 27, 2026.
Related: SKILL.md vs AGENTS.md, SKILL.md.