Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] agents: add unified agent coding assistant configuration

[Steven Rostedt]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2025 10:22:15 -0400
Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> We don't strictly need this patch. Here are the options I came up with:
> 
> 1. Multiple agent files: agents automatically read our rules, higher
> chance of comlpiance, doesn't require user to do anything manually.
> 
> 2. No agents files at all: this means that the user will need to
> explicitly trigger an action, otherwise all the tools I've tested it
> with will happily ignore the README file even when prompted to do other
> actions on the codebase (analyze code/write a patch/etc).
> 
> 3. Only "AGENTS.md" which seems like a few of the tools are trying to
> standardize on. We could also use it in the future to add prompt cues
> that might not be relevant within the README.

2 or 3 are the only options that seems reasonable. I agree with Greg. I
wouldn't want these files adding noise to the main directory for every
agent.

> 
> We could also start with most of these files, along with a statement
> that they will be removed within 12 months to give the various tools
> time to standardize around something.

Ideally, in 12 months they will all standardize on AGENTS.md and that's all
we will need. Let's not enable them to do their own thing in the mean time.
If we add this file, I would suspect it would help encourage the agents to
use it.

The best "standards" are the ones that are done in collaboration before
they are added to a specification ;-)

-- Steve