Devs Ditch 500 .md Files: Rebuild AI Instructions From Scratch Each Model Release
bendee983 · x · 2026-10-09
A developer describes joining a team with nearly 500 .md files for AI — roughly half a million words — estimating it would take about 30 hours just to read all the AI instructions, skills and hooks, and says he is increasingly skeptical such elaborate setups are worthwhile.
Another developer offers a best practice: periodically throw away all skills and .md files for AI harnesses and rebuild from scratch. With every new model release, some previous instructions become redundant or even get in the way; rather than bloating the LLM context with many md files (which can contain contradictory instructions once there are too many), start minimal, let the AI cook, and gradually add instructions and guardrails.
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