Study of ~3,000 repos ranks how people configure coding agents: start with AGENTS.md alone
JohnAlexander · x · 2026-09-13
An article on agent harness design, based on scanning nearly 3,000 real repositories, ranks the eight common ways to configure a coding agent. Key advice: start with just a context file written for a new teammate, name it AGENTS.md (all major tools read it; keep a two-line CLAUDE.md pointer), and only add the remaining configurations months later once the context file is solid. It also addresses classic failure modes like agents claiming tests passed and forgetting early instructions.
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