QGroundControl is a cross-platform ground control station for unmanned aircraft, allowing operators to control MAVLink-enabled drones and plan their missions. Drone users work with it to monitor flights, configure vehicles, tune parameters, stream video, and manage autonomous missions, while the catalogue contains skills and instructions for using the application.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to mavlink/qgroundcontrol. 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/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/master/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mavlink/qgroundcontrolWrote 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/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/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/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/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 | $0.01722 | $0.01722 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00689 | $0.00689 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00344 | $0.00344 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00172 | $0.00172 |
Grade A, and why
qgroundcontrol 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 5d 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 — 123 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
Instructions for AI coding agents (Codex, Claude Code, etc.) working on QGroundControl.
Quick References
- CODING_STYLE.md — Naming, formatting, C++20 features, QML style, logging
- .github/CONTRIBUTING.md — Architecture patterns (Fact System, Multi-Vehicle, FirmwarePlugin)
- tools/README.md — Development scripts, tooling, and every
justrecipe - test/README.md — Test framework, base classes, CTest labels, MultiSignalSpy, sanitizers, coverage
- cmake/README.md — CMake modules, presets, and test options
- .github/ci-overview.md — CI workflow/action/script layout and conventions
- .pre-commit-config.yaml — Lint hooks (
just lintruns every hook not markedmanual)
Required Preflight
Before modifying any repository file:
- Read CODING_STYLE.md completely.
- Read the task-specific references listed in this file.
- Do not begin editing until those reads are complete.
- Before the first edit, state in a progress update which instruction files were read.
Golden Rules
These are the non-negotiables. The first four are QGC's core architecture patterns. The pre-commit hook named in a rule fails CI on a violation. Full list with code examples: .github/CONTRIBUTING.md#architecture-patterns and CODING_STYLE.md#common-pitfalls.
- Fact System — ALL vehicle parameters flow through Facts; never create custom parameter storage.
- Multi-Vehicle — ALWAYS null-check
activeVehicle()/Vehicle*before dereferencing (vehicle-null-checkflags uncheckedactiveVehicle()results). - Firmware Plugin — use
vehicle->firmwarePlugin()for firmware-specific behavior, notif (px4)branches. - QML Integration — register types with
QML_ELEMENT/QML_SINGLETON/QML_UNCREATABLE; expose state viaQ_PROPERTY. - No
Q_ASSERTin production code — use defensive checks with early returns (check-no-qassert). - No
QTest::ignoreMessagein tests — useexpectLogMessage/ignoreLogMessage(check-no-qtest-ignore-message). - No fixed-delay
QTest::qWait(<n>)— useQTRY_*_WITH_TIMEOUTorQSignalSpy::wait(check-no-fixed-qwait). - Comments — prefer self-documenting code; comment only non-obvious intent, constraints, or workarounds.
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.
- 5d ago Changed · +13 lines · +201 tokens per session 0a7471034a10
- 2mo ago First seen · 110 lines · 1,521 tokens per session scan A 5626f7ebbfa9
qgroundcontrol AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository mavlink/qgroundcontrol (5,075 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 1,722 tokens to every session, about $0.0069 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.
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