Documenting for coding agents: explain rationale, timestamp everything, skip hard rules
menhguin · x · 2026-10-09
A developer shares practices for keeping documentation useful to AI coding agents, adding two key details:
- Add timestamps and version stamps to docs, describing the bug and solution with explanations—without prescribing them as permanent rules.
- Hard rules make agents "anxious"; simply explaining why something was done a certain way makes them far more sensible with fixes.
Previously outlined principles: 1) always explain the rationale; 2) document bugs in Chesterton's Fence format with deprecation criteria so agents can decide when something is no longer needed; 3) encourage autonomy.
Related event: Make Agents Cite Your Design Rationale to Preserve Intent(3 posts)→
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