What is OpenInstinct AGENTS.md?

Project instructions for building and changing an agent app with the eve framework, where an agent is a directory of configuration and instruction files.

Use them when adding or changing eve tools, connections, channels, skills, subagents, schedules, or deployment behavior.

They tell agents which documentation to read and which existing integrations and project conventions to follow before writing code.

How Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct configures Codex and OpenCode

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct. 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/Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct/main/AGENTS.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct

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/merit-systems/openinstinct/agents-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/merit-systems/openinstinct/agents-md)

Your own site

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

Per session 1,527 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,527 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	$0.01527	$0.01527
Opus 5.5	$0.00611	$0.00611
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00305	$0.00305
Haiku 4.5	$0.00153	$0.00153

Measured 2mo ago against content hash e1aa16f9ddff, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

OpenInstinct 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 2mo 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.

AGENTS.md · 105 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 105 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

eve Agent App

This project uses the eve framework: an agent is a directory of files under agent/, and eve compiles and runs it.

For a content-only change to the root agent's identity, purpose, tone, or response guidelines, edit its existing authored instructions. Fresh projects use agent/instructions.md; a project may instead use agent/instructions.ts or files under agent/instructions/. You do not need to read the framework docs for a content-only instructions change. A fresh project already has its selected model in agent/agent.ts; preserve that file unless the user asks to change the model.

Read the docs before writing code

ls node_modules/eve/docs

Start with docs/README.md: it maps each task to the page that covers it. Read that page before authoring tools, connections, channels, skills, subagents, schedules, or deployment. In a workspace or local package install, resolve the installed eve package location first. If the package docs are missing, use https://eve.dev/docs.

Use a bounded authoring loop:

Read the relevant page and inspect only files you will modify or need to imitate.
Stop discovery once the file location, imports, and definition shape are clear. Implement the smallest complete behavior the user requested.
Run one narrow verification. Expand investigation only when it fails or the request needs project-specific details.

Follow links or inspect public types only when the routed page leaves the task unanswered. Do not recursively glob node_modules, enumerate the entire docs tree, or read unrelated scaffold files when the direct path is known. Package-manager links can hide files from recursive glob tools even though direct reads work.

Prefer an existing integration

When a task names an external product or service, search the registry before implementing its integration. For a generic capability, author a tool instead.

eve registry search <query> --json
eve registry view <item>

Prefer items whose implementation is native; use Chat SDK adapters when no native channel fits. registry view links the item's documentation.

Read the full file on GitHub · 105 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.

2mo ago Changed · +10 lines · +349 tokens per session e1aa16f9ddff
2mo ago First seen · 95 lines · 1,178 tokens per session scan A 38dfbe279b07

Subscribe to this mod's changes

OpenInstinct AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct (484 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,527 tokens to every session, about $0.0061 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.

Building agents agent ai ai-agents imessage

OpenInstinct AGENTS.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
OpenInstinct AGENTS.mdMerit-Systems/OpenInstinct	Instructions file	484	4d ago	MIT	A	1,527	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	yesterday	MIT	A	7,461	Codex, OpenCode
langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain	Instructions file	149k	yesterday	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

OpenInstinct: Instructions file for Codex