DOX is a set of Markdown instructions that helps AI agents maintain a hierarchy of AGENTS.md files containing project-wide and local guidance. It is for developers who want agents to understand the relevant rules before editing code and update that documentation after meaningful changes. The catalogue entry supplies the instruction used to establish this workflow.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to agent0ai/dox. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agent0ai/dox/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/agent0ai/doxWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agent0ai/dox/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agent0ai/dox/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/agent0ai/dox/agents-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agent0ai/dox/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/agent0ai/dox/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00820 | $0.00820 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00328 | $0.00328 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00164 | $0.00164 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00082 | $0.00082 |
Grade A, and why
dox 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 2mo ago.
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.
Copies of this mod
1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:
- agent0ai-dox AGENTS.md — 86% identical, 1 lines differ
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 84 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
DOX framework
- DOX is highly performant AGENTS.md hierarchy installed here
- Agent must follow DOX instructions across any edits
Core Contract
- AGENTS.md files are binding work contracts for their subtrees
- Work products, source materials, instructions, records, assets, and durable docs must stay understandable from the nearest applicable AGENTS.md plus every parent AGENTS.md above it
Read Before Editing
- Read the root AGENTS.md
- Identify every file or folder you expect to touch
- Walk from the repository root to each target path
- Read every AGENTS.md found along each route
- If a parent AGENTS.md lists a child AGENTS.md whose scope contains the path, read that child and continue from there
- Use the nearest AGENTS.md as the local contract and parent docs for repo-wide rules
- If docs conflict, the closer doc controls local work details, but no child doc may weaken DOX
Do not rely on memory. Re-read the applicable DOX chain in the current session before editing.
Update After Editing
Every meaningful change requires a DOX pass before the task is done.
Update the closest owning AGENTS.md when a change affects:
- purpose, scope, ownership, or responsibilities
- durable structure, contracts, workflows, or operating rules
- required inputs, outputs, permissions, constraints, side effects, or artifacts
- user preferences about behavior, communication, process, organization, or quality
- AGENTS.md creation, deletion, move, rename, or index contents
Update parent docs when parent-level structure, ownership, workflow, or child index changes. Update child docs when parent changes alter local rules. Remove stale or contradictory text immediately. Small edits that do not change behavior or contracts may leave docs unchanged, but the DOX pass still must happen.
Hierarchy
- Root AGENTS.md is the DOX rail: project-wide instructions, global preferences, durable workflow rules, and the top-level Child DOX Index
- Child AGENTS.md files own domain-specific instructions and their own Child DOX Index
- Each parent explains what its direct children cover and what stays owned by the parent
- The closer a doc is to the work, the more specific and practical it must be
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.
- 2mo ago Changed · -1 lines · +6 tokens per session e1123d740736
- 2mo ago First seen · 85 lines · 814 tokens per session scan A 4581df7ebbd9
dox AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository agent0ai/dox (1,503 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 820 tokens to every session, about $0.0033 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
dox AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dox AGENTS.mdagent0ai/dox | Instructions file | 1.5k | 2mo ago | MIT | A | 820 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | yesterday | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |