Compound Engineering is a plugin that organizes software work into brainstorming, planning, implementation, review, and recording lessons for future changes. It is used with AI coding agents including Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, and the catalogue entries provide parts of its agent, skill, command, and hook workflow.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin. 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/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-pluginWrote 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/everyinc/compound-engineering-plugin/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/everyinc/compound-engineering-plugin/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/everyinc/compound-engineering-plugin/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/everyinc/compound-engineering-plugin/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/everyinc/compound-engineering-plugin/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 | $0.08110 | $0.08110 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.03244 | $0.03244 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.01622 | $0.01622 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00811 | $0.00811 |
Grade A, and why
compound-engineering-plugin 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 14d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 277 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Agent Instructions
This repository is the root of the compound-engineering coding-agent plugin and the marketplace/catalog metadata used to distribute it.
It also contains:
- the Bun/TypeScript CLI that converts Claude Code plugins into other agent platform formats
- shared release and metadata infrastructure for the CLI, marketplace, and plugin
AGENTS.md is the canonical repo instruction file. Root CLAUDE.md is a symlink to AGENTS.md so Claude Code and other tools that look for CLAUDE.md still find it at the expected path. Keep that symlink (do not replace it with a regular file): a real root CLAUDE.md makes claude plugin validate --strict fail because this checkout is also the plugin root.
Quick Start
bun install
bun run test # full test suite (also runs in CI; `--parallel` across worker processes)
bun run typecheck # tsc over src, scripts, and tests (also runs in CI)
bun run release:validate # plugin/marketplace consistency (also runs in CI)
bun run plugin:validate # Claude marketplace + plugin schema (also runs in CI; needs `claude` on PATH)
Codex Local Plugin Development
When testing current skill files in Codex, run the repository workflow from the checkout or worktree you intend to test:
bun run codex:dev -- local # link this worktree's skills and remove CE plugin installs
bun run codex:dev -- status # show local/remote state and checkout provenance
bun run codex:dev -- remote # restore the official marketplace-backed plugin
bun run codex:dev -- remove # remove both supported CE installation surfaces
refresh is an idempotent alias for local. Local mode manages only the exact $CODEX_HOME/skills/compound-engineering-local symlink and Compound Engineering plugin IDs; it must not alter unrelated user skills. The symlink includes modified and untracked files from the selected worktree. Start a new Codex session after switching installation modes. Current Codex versions detect direct skill edits automatically; restart only if an edit does not appear. For live local testing, use this workflow instead of adding the repository as a marketplace: a marketplace install caches a snapshot, while local mode links the current skill files.
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.
- 14d ago Changed · -6 lines · -285 tokens per session a3e2397d653d
- 15d ago Changed · +3 lines · +141 tokens per session 1abc38b67087
- 19d ago Changed · +50 tokens per session d8ffe4575144
- 21d ago Changed · +22 tokens per session 8e15155e4f36
- 1mo ago Changed · -83 lines · -4,325 tokens per session 34f81506b8b0
- 1mo ago Changed · +1 lines · +44 tokens per session f4c822242684
- 1mo ago Changed · +24 tokens per session 9be1f4363830
- 1mo ago Changed · +1 lines · +243 tokens per session 72e2e1fba557
- 1mo ago First seen · 361 lines · 12,196 tokens per session scan A b9dd6054ee53
compound-engineering-plugin AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin (25,625 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 8,110 tokens to every session, about $0.0324 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.
Other instructions, from other repositories
vscode buildNext.instructions.md
Working notes and architecture documentation for the new esbuild-based build system in build/next. Use when making changes to the new build pipeline (transpile/bundle commands, NLS plugin, source-map handling, resource copying, or self-hosting watch tasks).
next.js AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for vercel/next.js, covering next.js development guide, codebase structure, monorepo overview, core package: packages/next and other important packages.
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md
Instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code oss third-party-notices pipeline, architecture, pipeline flow in ci, cache eligibility and rollout and applying the notice (cutover).
langchain AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for langchain-ai/langchain, covering global development guidelines for the langchain monorepo, corridor security analysis, project architecture and context, monorepo structure and development tools & commands.
vscode copilot-instructions.md
Copilot instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code copilot instructions, project overview, root folders, core architecture (src/ folder) and built-in extensions (extensions/ folder).
deno copilot-instructions.md
Copilot instructions for denoland/deno, covering deno development guide for github copilot, network access, high level overview, key directories and key files to understand first.