What is btrace AGENTS.md?

A set of instructions for coding agents working on BTrace, a Java tracing tool that observes running Java programs. It explains the project's multi-module Gradle structure, where Gradle is the build system.

Use it when changing BTrace code, tests, build files, documentation, or distribution components. It helps agents find the relevant module and follow the project's Java and testing conventions.

It gives agents the repository context, coding rules, and verification requirements needed to make appropriate changes.

btrace AGENTS.md — Instructions file by btraceio

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/btraceio/btrace/agents-md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/btraceio/btrace

Made for: Codex, OpenCode.

Per session 890 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 890 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5	$0.00890	$0.00890
Opus 5	$0.00445	$0.00445
Sonnet 5	$0.00178	$0.00178
Haiku 4.5	$0.00089	$0.00089

Measured yesterday against content hash 1bb964182dd8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

btrace 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.

AGENTS.md · 66 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 66 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Repository Guide for Coding Agents

Start here

BTrace is a Java tracing tool: the client compiles and sends a script, the agent instruments the target JVM, and the runtime emits results. The root project is a multi-module Gradle build.

btrace-agent — attachable agent, script lifecycle, and bytecode instrumentation/weaving
btrace-compiler — script verification and compilation
btrace-runtime / btrace-core — script APIs, runtime support, and protocol
btrace-client — CLI and attachment client
btrace-dist — distribution assembly; integration-tests — end-to-end tests
btrace-extensions/* — extension API and implementations

For the developer command reference and code-navigation pointers, see CLAUDE.md. For user and contributor documentation, start at docs/README.md.

Non-negotiable rules

Do not commit unless the changes are fully tested or the user explicitly requests a commit.
Preserve unrelated working-tree changes.
In Java code, import types and use simple names; do not introduce fully qualified type names in source.
Main code targets Java 8 and uses the Java 11 toolchain. Follow Spotless/Google Java Format.
Unit tests live in src/test/java and use *Test; integration tests live in integration-tests/src/test/java.
Changes to user-visible behavior that crosses modules or process boundaries must include end-to-end functional coverage in integration-tests; unit and component tests are required where useful but are not a substitute for exercising the real client, agent, target JVM, and protocol interaction.
Confirm that a new test or build gate fails when it should, not only that it passes. Run it against the unfixed code, or against input it must reject, and check the failure is the expected one. A check that cannot fail reports success regardless of what the code does, and reads as coverage while providing none. Where a revert is used to produce the failure, revert only the code under test: reverting too much fails for an unrelated reason and proves nothing about the behavior being asserted.

Read the full file on GitHub · 66 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.

yesterday First seen · 66 lines · 890 tokens per session scan A 1bb964182dd8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

btrace AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository btraceio/btrace (5,991 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 890 tokens to every session, about $0.0044 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.

Debugging Testing Writing and docs btrace bytecode-instrumentation diagnostics dtrace java java-agent

btrace AGENTS.md

Getting it into your agent

What it costs to keep this loaded

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

How it starts

Repository Guide for Coding Agents

Start here

Non-negotiable rules

What this file has done since we first saw it

Other instructions, from other repositories

Cobalt CLAUDE.md

imgui-java CLAUDE.md

SHAFT_ENGINE CLAUDE.md

toBeBetterJavaer AGENTS.md

Sighthound AGENTS.md

deptrust AGENTS.md