guitar-tabs: Instructions file for Codex

Guitar Tab System

This repository contains guitar tab sheets and a system for generating those tab sheets.

Tab sheets

Sheet format

Tab sheets are Markdown formatted, with the actual tabs or chords in code blocks.

File structure

Tab sheets should contain the following in this order:

• The song name & artist name
• A table containing:
  • key & scale of the song
  • time signature
• Ordering of song sections (e.g. verse, chorus, bridge, solo)
• A Markdown section for each song section
  • chords + tabs for rhythm sections, tabs for lead plucking/solo sections

Example tab sheet header:

## Treasure — Bruno Mars

<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td><strong>Key &amp; scale</strong></td><td>Ab major (Ab Ionian: Ab Bb C Db Eb F G)</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Time signature</strong></td><td>4/4</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Tuning</strong></td><td>Standard (E A D G B E)</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Tempo</strong></td><td>~116 BPM</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

### Song structure
Intro → Verse 1 → Pre-chorus → Chorus → Verse 2 → Pre-chorus → Chorus → Bridge → Final Chorus/Outro

Notes:

• Tabs should always show all six guitar strings.
• When both tabs & chords are provided, place the chords above the tabs.

File organization

• Place the tab sheets at /tabs/{artist_name}/{song_name}.
• When a new request comes in, always check that the sheet doesn't already exist so we don't duplicate work.

Generating tabs

An MCP is available in guitar-tabs-mcp for scraping tabs, and it's Cursor config is at .cursor/mcp.json. It requires a venv install, which is given in the Makefile. All other processing is done inside Cursor with it's AI agent chat.

Setup

Set up instructions are provided in the README