Agent Dev Guide: Distinguish AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, and SKILL.md
_THE_ABBA_ · reddit · 2026-08-21
The post explores the distinctions and best practices for configuration files in Agent projects. AGENTS.md is read every session; it should be minimal to avoid wasting tokens and degrading performance. SKILL.md describes specific capabilities and only loads the full body when relevant. Key advice:
- Stop letting agents auto-generate AGENTS.md; a short, manually edited file is superior.
- Put session-level constraints in AGENTS.md; put occasional capabilities (e.g., deployment sequences) in a skill folder.
- Deprecate CLAUDE.md; use AGENTS.md as the single source of truth and sync via scripts.
- DESIGN.md encodes visual identity and design logic for UI generation.
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