What is agentrc AGENTS.md?

A set of instructions for AgentRC, a command-line tool and VS Code extension that prepares software repositories for AI-assisted development. It explains the project layout, commands, and output rules.

Use it when changing AgentRC, its shared core package, its command-line interface, its VS Code extension, or its built-in skills.

It gives a coding agent the repository-specific context needed to work consistently. This reduces confusion about where code belongs and how to build or test it.

How microsoft/agentrc configures Codex and OpenCode

About the project

AgentRC prepares repositories for AI coding agents by analyzing their code and generating project-specific instructions, evaluations, and development configuration. It is used through a CLI, VS Code extension, or CI pipeline to measure AI readiness, keep context useful, and detect drift; the catalogue entries support these repository-preparation workflows.

microsoft/agentrc · 1,109 stars · on GitHub

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/agentrc. 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/microsoft/agentrc/main/AGENTS.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/agentrc

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/microsoft/agentrc/agents-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/agentrc/agents-md)

Your own site

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

Per session 869 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 869 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	$0.00869	$0.00869
Opus 5.5	$0.00348	$0.00348
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00174	$0.00174
Haiku 4.5	$0.00087	$0.00087

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 452864d940dd, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

agentrc 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 1mo 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 · 68 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 68 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

AgentRC Copilot Instructions

@microsoft/agentrc is a CLI tool (and VS Code extension) that sets up repositories for AI-assisted development. It analyzes repos, generates instruction files, evaluates AI responses, and runs readiness reports.

Architecture

src/                   # CLI entry point and commands
  cli.ts               # Commander program, withGlobalOpts helper
  commands/            # Thin command wrappers (parse args → call services)
  ui/                  # Ink/React TUI components
packages/core/src/     # Shared services and utilities (bundled into dist)
  services/            # analyzer, generator, instructions, readiness, policy, ...
  utils/               # fs, output, logger, repo, pr
plugin/skills/         # Built-in skill markdown files (copied to dist/skills/ on build)
vscode-extension/      # See .github/instructions/vscode-extension.instructions.md

@agentrc/core (in packages/core/) is bundled into the CLI output — it is not an external npm package. Use the @agentrc/core/* path alias for all cross-package imports.

Build & Test

npm run build          # tsup → dist/index.js (ESM, Node 22+)
npm run dev            # tsx src/index.ts (run from source)
npm run typecheck      # tsc --noEmit
npm run lint           # eslint
npm test               # vitest run
npm run test:coverage  # vitest run --coverage

Output is ESM ("type": "module"). All node_modules are external except @agentrc/core, @github/copilot-sdk, and vscode-jsonrpc (bundled via noExternal in tsup.config.ts).

SDK shim: tsup.config.ts patches getBundledCliPath() in the Copilot SDK. An identical shim lives in vscode-extension/esbuild.mjs — update both together if SDK internals change.

Command Pattern

Commands in src/commands/ are thin wrappers:

Resolve paths and options
Call services from @agentrc/core/services/*
Write output using the output utilities

Wrap every command action with withGlobalOpts (from src/cli.ts) so --json, --quiet, and --accessible are merged into the options object.

Read the full file on GitHub · 68 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.

1mo ago Changed · +1 tokens per session 452864d940dd
1mo ago First seen · 68 lines · 868 tokens per session scan A 76c58039219b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

agentrc AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/agentrc (1,109 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 869 tokens to every session, about $0.0035 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.

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).

microsoft/vscode · 9,715 tokens

agentrc: Instructions file for Codex

Borrowing it

Wrote this? Show the measurements

What it costs to keep this loaded

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

How it starts

AgentRC Copilot Instructions

Architecture

Build & Test

Command Pattern

What this file has done since we first saw it

Other instructions, from other repositories

vscode buildNext.instructions.md

next.js AGENTS.md

vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md

langchain AGENTS.md

vscode copilot-instructions.md

deepseek-harness AGENTS.md