Seven common AGENTS.md mistakes and how to fix them for better AI coding

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AGENTS.md files are meant to guide coding agents, but poorly written instructions often get ignored due to vagueness, contradictions, or lack of structure. Developers are advised to replace generic directives with concrete, verifiable commands and to use nested instruction files in monorepos for more targeted guidance. Clear acceptance checklists and exact validation commands help agents determine when a task is truly complete. Task-specific details like objectives and scope should be kept in prompts rather than the instruction file itself. Agents also need explicit failure-recovery rules to prevent silent test deletions or unresolved handoffs.

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