AI agent maintenance skill
Use this skill for repository AI instructions, skills, prompt files, compatibility shims, and source-index maintenance.
Design policy
AGENTS.mdis the canonical root instruction file.CLAUDE.mdis a thin compatibility shim importingAGENTS.mdand, when helpful,.agents/skills/README.md..agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.mdis the standard project skill location.- Tool-specific files may exist only as thin shims or when an official source shows a concrete benefit.
- When
AGENTS.mdand.agents/skills/already cover the same rules, remove duplicate.github/copilot-instructions.mdand.github/copilot/skills/copies instead of maintaining parallel text. - Do not copy long initialization prompts wholesale. Distill repo-specific rules, commands, gotchas, and source-backed decisions.
Source-backed workflow
- Inventory relevant files, if present:
AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md,.agents/skills/,.agents/skills/README.md,.github/copilot-instructions.md,.github/copilot/skills/,.github/instructions/,.github/prompts/,.github/agents/. - Check
doc/ai/source-index.mdbefore making tool-compatibility claims. - Fetch official docs for any new URL or tool behavior before relying on it.
- Mark failed or ambiguous sources as unverified. Do not encode unsupported claims into always-on instructions.
- Update
last_checked,next_review, and update triggers in the source index when sources are revisited.
Skill frontmatter rules
- Frontmatter is YAML between
---markers. - Required fields:
name,description. namemust match the parent directory exactly.- Use lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; no spaces, underscores, leading/trailing hyphens, or consecutive hyphens.
- Quote descriptions containing colons.
- Descriptions should use trigger language such as
Use when:and stay under 1024 characters.
Progressive disclosure
- Keep
AGENTS.mdshort enough to be always loaded. - Put multi-step workflows in skills.
- Put long references in
doc/and link them. - Avoid duplicating identical instructions across
AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md, compatibility shims, and skills.
Validation
- Run
git diff --check. - Manually verify every
SKILL.mdfrontmatter block. - For docs-only changes, do not run a full CMake build unless build/test commands or generated files changed.
- Summarize any tool-specific support as verified, compatibility shim, or unverified.
Source: owent/hiredis-happ — distributed by TomeVault.