What is absurd AGENTS.md?

Project-specific instructions for Absurd, a system that runs long-lasting tasks using PostgreSQL, a database system. It explains the repository, its TypeScript software kit, web interface, command-line tool, and tests.

Use it when working on Absurd's database procedures, TypeScript software kit, monitoring interface, command-line tool, or test suite.

It gives an agent the project context needed to build, test, and modify the system without guessing how its parts fit together.

How earendil-works/absurd configures Codex and OpenCode

About the project

Absurd is a durable workflow system that uses PostgreSQL to run scheduled, retryable functions whose state survives crashes, restarts, and network failures. It is for developers building long-running processes such as agent tasks, payments, email scheduling, or order processing without adding another service alongside Postgres. The catalogue instruction and skill support working with this workflow system.

earendil-works/absurd · 2,534 stars · on GitHub · earendil-works.github.io

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to earendil-works/absurd. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/earendil-works/absurd/main/AGENTS.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/earendil-works/absurd

Made for: Codex, OpenCode.

Wrote 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/agents-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/agents-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/earendil-works/absurd/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 593 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 593 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

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 5.1	$0.00593	$0.00593
Opus 5.5	$0.00237	$0.00237
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00119	$0.00119
Haiku 4.5	$0.00059	$0.00059

Measured today against content hash b5bcc5272f3e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

absurd 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 today.

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 · 69 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 69 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Agents

Absurd is a Postgres-native durable workflow system. It moves the complexity of durable execution into the database layer via stored procedures, keeping SDKs lightweight and language-agnostic. The core principle is to handle tasks that may run for minutes, days, or years without losing state.

Key concept: A task is subdivided into steps that act as checkpoints. Tasks can suspend (for sleep or events) and resume without data loss. All state lives in Postgres tables prefixed by queue name (t_, r_, c_, e_, w_).

Repository Structure

sql/absurd.sql - Core Postgres schema and stored procedures. This is the heart of the system.
sdks/typescript/ - TypeScript SDK (absurd-sdk on npm)
habitat/ - Go-based web UI for monitoring tasks, runs, and events
absurdctl - Python-based CLI tool for queue/task management and debugging
tests/ - Python test suite using psycopg and testcontainers

Building and Testing

TypeScript SDK

cd sdks/typescript
npm install
npm run build  # Compiles to dist/ (both ESM and CommonJS)

Habitat (Web UI)

cd habitat
make build      # Build UI + Go binary -> bin/habitat
make dev        # Run dev server with hot reload
./bin/habitat run -db-name your-database-name

Python Tests

cd tests
uv run pytest              # Run all tests
uv run pytest test_foo.py  # Run single test file

Documentation

make docs        # Build docs/ into site/ (scripts/docs/build.py)
make serve-docs  # Serve on http://127.0.0.1:8000/, rebuilding on change

The navigation lives in docs/SUMMARY.md. The theme (shared with Earendil's other docs) lives in scripts/docs/assets/; Elanor's tokens and fonts come from npm, pinned in scripts/docs/elanor.json (scripts/docs/build.py update-elanor).

Formatting

make format     # Format TypeScript SDK, habitat UI, and Python tests

Habitat Web UI

Habitat connects directly to Postgres and serves a SolidJS dashboard. It shows task state, run history, checkpoint data, and events. Useful for debugging and monitoring.

Read the full file on GitHub · 69 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.

today Changed · +9 lines · +114 tokens per session b5bcc5272f3e
2mo ago First seen · 60 lines · 479 tokens per session scan A c0d1091c7a78

Subscribe to this mod's changes

absurd AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository earendil-works/absurd (2,534 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 593 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 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.

absurd AGENTS.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
absurd AGENTS.mdearendil-works/absurd	Instructions file	2.5k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	593	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	today	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

absurd: Instructions file for Codex