Agentic-Agile Template is a development methodology and starter template for building software through structured collaboration between people and AI coding agents. Development teams use it to organize backlogs, write detailed specifications, coordinate parallel agent work, govern changes, and measure the process. The catalogue entries encode parts of this methodology as instructions and rules.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/agentic-agile-template. 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/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/agentic-agile-templateWrote 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/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/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/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/agentic-agile-template/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 | $0.02773 | $0.02773 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01109 | $0.01109 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00555 | $0.00555 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00277 | $0.00277 |
Grade A, and why
agentic-agile-template 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 2d 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 — 244 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
[Project Name]
Universal agent entry point. Any agent reading this repository cold starts here. This file is both orientation reference and onboarding orchestrator.
What This Is
This repository is built on the Agentic-Agile Template — a starter framework for teams adopting structured human-agent collaboration. It provides the process layer that makes agent partnerships repeatable: structured backlogs, spec-first stories, platform adapter context files, built-in governance, and continuous measurement.
This file (AGENTS.md) is the single canonical entry point for all AI coding agents. Read it completely before taking any action in the repository. It detects which state the repository is in and routes you to the right starting point.
Repo Map
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
AGENTS.md |
This file. Universal agent entry point and onboarding orchestrator. |
README.md |
Human-facing project overview and getting-started guide. |
MANIFESTO.md |
The Agentic-Agile Manifesto: 5 values and 13 principles for human-agent development. |
STYLE.md |
Code conventions, commit message format, PR structure, documentation standards. |
CONTRIBUTING.md |
Human contribution workflow and PR guidelines. |
CONTRIBUTING-AGENTS.md |
Agent-facing contribution guide for this template repo (adapter anatomy, structural invariants). |
LICENSE |
MIT License. |
SECURITY.md |
Security policy and vulnerability reporting process. |
mcp.json |
Example MCP server configuration for agent tooling. |
platform-adapters/ |
Layered agent / tracker / CI-CD context. Three sub-layers: agent-tools/ (one adapter per AI agent), issue-trackers/ (one per backlog system), ci-cd/ (planned v2), plus combos/ for pre-assembled stacks. |
docs/agent-surface-selection.md |
Guide to choosing the right agent surface for different task types. |
docs/evaluation-framework.md |
Eight-dimension framework for measuring human-agent partnership effectiveness. |
docs/agentic-review-cycle.md |
Tool-neutral pattern for getting a PR through repeated review in few rounds (class-level fixes, batching, stop condition, review-cycle log). |
docs/epic-decomposition-example.md |
Worked example: decompose an epic into stories, assign file ownership, plan waves. |
docs/history/ |
Implementation plan and design history (Phase 1/Phase 2 multi-platform generalization). |
docs/retrospectives/ |
Retrospectives (e.g., the June 2026 consolidation) with originating prompts and review reports. |
docs/templates/ |
Reusable document templates (e.g., retrospective.md). |
docs/sample-issues/ |
Worked-example issues (TaskFlow epic decomposition and onboarding walkthrough), kept as read-only markdown. |
.github/copilot-instructions.md |
GitHub Copilot-specific instruction file (stub pointing to the Copilot adapter). |
.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/agentic-story.md |
Structured story template with scope, file ownership, and acceptance criteria. |
.github/contributor-templates/ |
Issue and PR templates for contributing to this template repo (see CONTRIBUTING-AGENTS.md). |
.github/instructions/ |
Path-scoped agent instructions (e.g., agent-skills.instructions.md for files under skills/). |
.github/skills/ |
Optional, portable Agent Skills (e.g., agentic-agile-forensic-ingest); see .github/skills/README.md. |
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.
- 2d ago Changed · +19 lines · +435 tokens per session d2414e64cad7
- 1mo ago First seen · 225 lines · 2,338 tokens per session scan A 6857d1b54682
agentic-agile-template AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/agentic-agile-template (98 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,773 tokens to every session, about $0.0111 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).
deepseek-harness AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness, covering agents.md, pre-stable apis and released session data, repository layout, commands and host sandbox failures.