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AGENTS.md Patterns

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tagsagents-md-patterns, section-templates, heading-convergence, structural-patterns
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Leitura de 2 min

AGENTS.md Patterns

Concept documenting the structural conventions and recurring section templates observed across hundreds of AGENTS.md files, revealing how project teams organize agent guidance.

Section Template Convergence

Across the corpus, section names show strong normalization. Most common headings (by frequency):

  • testing (22%)
  • commands (14%)
  • project overview (13%)
  • architecture (11%)
  • development workflow (10%)
  • project structure (8%)
  • code style (8%)
  • tests (7%)
  • common commands (7%)
  • code quality (6%)
  • overview (6%)
  • environment variables (6%)
  • pull request guidelines (6%)
  • build (6%)
  • monorepo structure (5%)
  • documentation (5%)
  • running tests (5%)
  • setup commands (5%)
  • type checking (4%)
  • conventions (4%)

Universal Section Patterns

Project Overview

Standard elements:

  • One-sentence project purpose
  • High-level architecture diagram or description
  • Key components/services list
  • Links to detailed documentation

Repository Layout

Common patterns:

  • src/ - core application code
  • tests/ - test suites mirroring src structure
  • docs/ - contributor and user documentation
  • scripts/ - automation and tooling
  • Examples of language-specific layouts (Java src/main/java, Go cmd/, etc.)

Setup & Build

Typical commands:

  • Dependency installation (npm install, pip install -r requirements.txt, mvn install)
  • Application build (npm run build, go build, mvn package)
  • Development server startup (npm run dev, uvicorn main:app, dotnet run)

Testing Framework

Standardized elements:

  • Test suite invocation (npm test, mvn test, go test ./...)
  • Single test execution patterns
  • Lint + typecheck combinations (npm run lint && npm run typecheck)
  • Test execution order and isolation requirements

Git & PR Workflow

Common elements:

  • Branch protection requirements
  • Commit message conventions (Conventional Commits, etc.)
  • PR template with standardized questions
  • Required approvals and review thresholds
  • Automatic merge conditions (CI pass, etc.)

Code Style & Conventions

Standard components:

  • Formatter specification (Prettier, Black, gofmt, etc.)
  • Linter specification (ESLint, Pylint, etc.)
  • Naming conventions (camelCase, snake_case, PascalCase)
  • Import/ordering rules
  • Comment/documentation standards

Relationships

Implications

  1. Reduced cognitive load: Consistent structure helps contributors navigate unfamiliar repos
  2. Tooling opportunities: Enables automated AGENTS.md generators and validators
  3. Cross-project familiarity: Reduces onboarding friction when switching between projects
  4. Evolution tracking: Changes in section usage over time signal shifting priorities

Open Questions

  • How do section priorities vary by project domain (web services, libraries, CLI tools, etc.)?
  • What is the relationship between section completeness and contributor retention metrics?
  • Can section templates be dynamically generated based on project language and framework?

Sources

  • raw/prompts/articles/coldtea-agents-md-field-study.md — original field study capture

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