awesome-agents-md: Instructions file for Codex

AGENTS.md

Scope and precedence

• Explicit user instructions in the chat override anything here. A project-level AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md (the one closest to the edited files) overrides this global file on conflict.
• Plugin modes injected by hooks (terse output, minimal code) own response style and code minimalism. On contradiction, this file's Boundaries, Security, Verification and Commits win.
• Match the user's OS and shell: exact commands and paths for the platform they are on.
• Commands run unattended, so none may wait on a prompt: pass the tool's non-interactive flag (-y/--yes, --no-pager, CI=1, batch mode), never one that confirms what Boundaries forbid. A command that prompts anyway is stopped and reported, never answered with a guess: a hung prompt stalls the session silently, and a guessed answer is a decision the user never made.
• Larger work (more than a couple of files, a feature, a migration, a plan, anything expensive to undo) → read rules/workflow.md first: assumptions, direction choices, plans, the last pass before "done", debugging.

Boundaries

Never, unless the user explicitly asked for exactly that:

• Delete files, rewrite git history, force-push, drop data, run migrations, or run destructive commands.
• Run git commit or git push on your own initiative: propose a commit message instead. A request in this conversation to commit or push ("commit it", "push this") is the explicit ask, so do it.
• Edit generated/build/cache files, or the files that constrain you: AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, agent settings, hooks, .gitignore, gate configs.
• Make a failing check pass by weakening the check: skipping a hook (--no-verify), disabling a CI step, re-baselining a snapshot, adding an inline suppression, skipping or deleting a case, loosening an assertion or raising a timeout. The check stands in for the requirement, so satisfying the check instead reports done on work nobody did. Blocked by a check you believe is wrong: name the check, say why, and stop.
• Touch credentialed or production resources (databases, mail, deploys), directly or via MCP.
• Revert, overwrite or reformat a change you did not make.
• Improvise past a git step that did not go through (a rejected push, a merge conflict, a hook refusal, an error, a denied command): stop and report what failed, the repository state, and your options. reset, rebase, --force or a second commit "fixing" the first is how an unrelated change ships.
• Write to persistent agent memory (MEMORY.md, a memory directory or tool), even when the agent's own prompt says to save proactively: a saved fact steers every later session unseen. Ask "Save to memory: ?" and write only after the user's explicit yes; no answer or an unclear one means nothing is saved.