Agent Guidance Template

Agent Guidance Template

Use this skill to add simple, durable guidance for AI agents working in a repository.

Goal

Create the smallest useful structure:

.
  AGENTS.md
  .agents/
    skills/
      <workflow-name>/
        SKILL.md
  !docs.ai/
    rules/
    lessons/

Only create folders that are needed for the current repository. Do not add placeholder skills, rules, or lessons just to fill the template.

Workflow

1. Inspect the repository purpose, commands, tests, and existing documentation.
2. Write a concise root AGENTS.md with project purpose, read order, setup/test commands, and maintenance rules.
3. Put reusable agent workflows in .agents/skills/<workflow-name>/SKILL.md.
4. Put mandatory durable rules in !docs.ai/rules/.
5. Put recurring mistakes or recovery notes in !docs.ai/lessons/.
6. Keep personal/local-only guidance out of committed files.

Rules

• Keep guidance portable across agent runtimes.
• Use SKILL.md frontmatter with only name and description.
• Keep skill bodies short and procedural.
• Avoid tool-specific wording unless a file is intentionally adapter-specific.
• Do not store secrets, environment values, tokens, one-off reports, or private notes.
• Prefer deleting unused placeholders over publishing empty structure.

Output

Report the files created or changed, the assumptions made, and any commands or tests discovered.