{"type":"analysis","id":"analysis:guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow","slug":"guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow","title":"AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md: writing instructions that agents follow","description":"AGENTS.md is a plain Markdown file coding agents load as standing project instructions. Put it at the repo root; nested copies can specialize packages. Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot coding agent, and Google Jules read it (Jules documents only the root file). Gemini CLI’s documented default context f","published_at":"2026-11-09T09:00:00.000Z","updated_at":"2026-11-09T09:00:00.000Z","record_date":"2026-11-09","topics":["tools","developer_tools"],"source_urls":["https://agents.md/","https://developers.openai.com/codex/guides/agents-md","https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory","https://cursor.com/docs/rules","https://geminicli.com/docs/cli/gemini-md/","https://jules.google/docs/","https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/prompting-and-context/custom-instructions","https://jules.google/docs/changelog/","https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/releases/tag/v2.1.277","https://github.blog/changelog/2025-08-28-copilot-coding-agent-now-supports-agents-md-custom-instructions/","https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/13386","https://forum.cursor.com/t/nested-agents-md-files-not-being-loaded/138411"],"language":"en","routes":{"html":"https://newruntime.com/analysis/guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/analysis/guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/analysis/guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow.json"},"author":{"role":"author","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]},"editorial_provenance":{"desk":"authorial","target_ref":"practical:81f19242-9f16-4a7a-89b2-9863ff715fa4","authorial_article_id":null},"markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/analysis/guide-agents-md-and-claude-md-writing-instructions-that-agents-follow.md","retrieval_nugget":"AGENTS.md is a plain Markdown file coding agents load as standing project instructions. Put it at the repo root; nested copies can specialize packages. Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot coding agent, and Google Jules read it (Jules documents only the root file).","next_reads":[{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/tools/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/tools/","title":"Tools","reason":"Explore the tools topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/tools.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/tools.json"},{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/developer-tools/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/developer-tools/","title":"Developer Tools","reason":"Explore the developer_tools topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/developer-tools.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/developer-tools.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/analysis/","url":"https://newruntime.com/analysis/","title":"Analysis","reason":"Open the latest authorial analysis.","media_type":"text/html","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/analysis.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/sources/","url":"https://newruntime.com/sources/","title":"Sources","reason":"See the original sources this archive cites.","media_type":"text/html"}]}