agents-doc

Every AI coding agent reads its own config file. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md. Codex reads AGENTS.md. If you use both, you end up writing the same rules twice and inevitably they drift. agents-doc gives you one place to author rules, skills, and slash commands, compiles them into each agent's native format, and mechanically detects when the generated files have been edited directly.

Install

npm install -g agents-doc

Commands

agents-doc init    # bootstrap .agents-doc/ from existing CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md
agents-doc sync    # regenerate all agent configs from .agents-doc/
agents-doc check   # verify on-disk agent files match .agents-doc/
agents-doc doctor  # run drift + rule-quality checks; hand off judgment items

init is a one-time step for existing projects. After that the loop is: edit .agents-doc/ → sync → commit.

check exits non-zero on any drift or untracked extra, so it slots directly into CI. doctor adds rule-quality lint on top (vague phrasing, over-broad globs, cross-rule contradictions) and writes anything that needs human judgment to .agents-doc/todo.md.

Source of truth layout

.agents-doc/
├── config.yaml           # agents: [claude, codex]
├── rules/                # one .md file per rule
│   ├── 000-intro.md
│   ├── 001-code-style.md
│   └── 002-components.md
├── skills/               # Claude Code only — copied to .claude/skills/
│   └── refactor-py/
│       └── SKILL.md
└── commands/             # Claude Code only — copied to .claude/commands/
    └── review.md

Each file in rules/ carries YAML frontmatter:

---
agents: ["*"]        # "*" = all agents, or ["claude"], ["codex"], ["cursor"]
path: src/components # project-relative dir; omit for root
priority: high       # high | normal | low — controls ordering in output
description: ...     # optional one-liner; used by Cursor's "Agent Requested" rule type
---

## Component conventions

Always co-locate the test file with the component.

Rules with the same path are merged into a single CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md at that location. Frontmatter is stripped from the compiled output. Generated files are marked with a header so direct edits are detectable.

For Cursor, each SOT rule compiles to a single .cursor/rules/<name>.mdc at project root. Path scoping is translated into Cursor's native globs: (a rule with path: src/foo becomes globs: ["src/foo/**"]); a root-level rule with no globs becomes alwaysApply: true. Cursor has no native skills or slash-command surface, so SOT skills and commands are not emitted for it. Cursor's "Agent Requested" rule type (description-only, no globs, no alwaysApply) is not expressible in the SOT in this release.

Resolving judgment items

Mechanical issues (drift, broken references) are fixed by agents-doc sync. Everything that requires judgment — vague phrasing, over-broad globs, contradictions between rules — is collected by agents-doc doctor into .agents-doc/todo.md as a checklist.

For Claude Code users, agents-doc sync auto-installs a /doc-fix slash command. Inside Claude Code, run:

/doc-fix

It reads todo.md, edits the SOT under .agents-doc/rules/ (never the generated CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md), ticks each item as it resolves them, and re-runs sync + check at the end.

For Codex CLI users, the same workflow ships as a skill at .agents/skills/doc-fix/SKILL.md. Ask Codex to "use the doc-fix skill" (or just point it at .agents-doc/todo.md) and it follows the same script.

doc-fix is a reserved name. Authoring .agents-doc/commands/doc-fix.md or .agents-doc/skills/doc-fix/ in the SOT is rejected by the loader.

CI

- name: Check agent config drift
  run: npx agents-doc check

Any mismatch between .agents-doc/ and the committed generated files fails the step.

For stricter CI that also enforces rule quality (vague phrasing, over-broad globs, contradictions), swap in npx agents-doc doctor. It exits non-zero when judgment items are produced or when drift exists, so it catches everything check does and more.

Supported agents

Agent	Rules	Skills	Commands
Claude Code	CLAUDE.md (root + nested)	.claude/skills/	.claude/commands/ (incl. auto-installed /doc-fix)
Codex CLI	AGENTS.md (root + nested)	.agents/skills/ (incl. auto-installed doc-fix skill)	—
Cursor	.cursor/rules/*.mdc (root only)	—	—

Heads up: Codex's project skills directory is .agents/skills/ — one character apart from this tool's source-of-truth directory .agents-doc/. Don't conflate them.

License

MIT