AGENTS.md Explained: The Operational Guide Coding Agents Need to Work Safely

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As AI coding agents grow capable of editing files, running tests, and opening pull requests, repositories need more than a README to guide them effectively. AGENTS.md is a plain Markdown file placed at a repository's root that gives coding agents project-specific instructions, such as test commands, architectural boundaries, and files that must never be manually edited. Unlike a README, which helps humans understand a project's purpose and usage, AGENTS.md focuses on how to change the project safely and correctly. GitHub's Copilot coding agent added support for AGENTS.md in August 2025, and OpenAI Codex also recognises a hierarchy of such instruction files discovered from the repository root. The recommended approach is to start with the facts an agent is most likely to get wrong and expand the file only when real tasks reveal gaps in context.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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