attention-control AGENTS.md

Repository instructions for maintaining the Attention Control writing style across several coding-agent tools. They identify one source file as the canonical version and explain which files are generated from it.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when editing or regenerating the Attention Control style, its agent instructions, or its tool-specific copies.
Why use it?
They prevent edits to generated files and help keep the same writing rules across agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Gemini CLI.

Instructions file for CodexOpenCode

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add instructions/aaddrick/attention-control/agents-md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aaddrick/attention-control

Made for: Codex, OpenCode.

Per session 2,287 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 2,287 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.02287 $0.02287
Opus 5 $0.01144 $0.01144
Sonnet 5 $0.00457 $0.00457
Haiku 4.5 $0.00229 $0.00229

Measured yesterday against content hash 644f45800121, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

attention-control AGENTS.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

AGENTS.md · 233 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 233 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Working in this repository

This repository ships one output style to seven coding agents. One file is canonical. Everything else is generated from it or checked against it.

Read this before you edit anything here.

The one rule that breaks the build

Edit output-styles/attention-control.md. Never edit a generated file.

These files are generated. Each carries a "Do not edit this file" marker:

Generated file Built from
skills/attention-control/SKILL.md the canonical style
.cursor/skills/attention-control/SKILL.md the canonical style
.cursor/rules/attention-control.mdc the canonical style
the snippet section of INSTALL.md the canonical style
AGENTS.md CLAUDE.md

AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md say the same thing. Edit CLAUDE.md and run the generator; the mirror follows.

Which file your tool reads

Tool Reads For
Claude Code CLAUDE.md these standards
Cursor AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, both automatic these standards
Gemini CLI AGENTS.md, then GEMINI.md these standards, then the style
Any other agent-instruction harness AGENTS.md these standards

GEMINI.md is not a repository guide. gemini-extension.json names it as the extension's context file, so it is what a Gemini CLI user gets when they install this style. Leave it as the style.

.gemini/settings.json adds AGENTS.md to the context list, so a Gemini agent working here reads the standards and the style. It changes nothing for anyone who installs the extension.

After any edit to a source file, run:

python3 scripts/sync_style.py

CI fails when a copy drifts. scripts/sync_style.py --check is the gate.

Write in the style you are editing

This repository uses its own output style. Apply it to your responses and to the prose you write into these files.

Read the full file on GitHub · 233 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 233 lines · 2,287 tokens per session scan A 644f45800121

Subscribe to this mod's changes

attention-control AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository aaddrick/attention-control (101 stars, last pushed 22d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,287 tokens to every session, about $0.0114 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.