Formic CLAUDE.md

Formic CLAUDE.md is an instructions file for coding agents from rickywo/Formic. It costs 6,475 tokens per session, scanned A, a copy of Formic AGENTS.md, MIT.

Instructions for Formic Task Manager, an assistant that explores a codebase and creates structured tasks for later implementation. It can read and analyze files but is not meant to edit the code directly.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them to investigate bugs or feature ideas, inspect the board and task queue, and prepare implementation prompts for the Formic workflow.
Why use it?
They keep problem-solving focused on well-defined tasks instead of making unapproved code changes.

Instructions file

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add instructions/rickywo/formic/claude-md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rickywo/Formic

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.

agentmods badge for Formic CLAUDE.md

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/rickywo/formic/claude-md.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/rickywo/formic/claude-md)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/rickywo/formic/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/rickywo/formic/claude-md.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 6,475 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 6,475 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 88% copy Near-identical to another mod 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.06475 $0.06475
Opus 5 $0.03238 $0.03238
Sonnet 5 $0.01295 $0.01295
Haiku 4.5 $0.00647 $0.00647

Measured 5d ago against content hash 5d6660d327d7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Formic CLAUDE.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.

Origin

This is a copy

88% identical to Formic AGENTS.md — 34 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

CLAUDE.md · 407 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 407 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Formic Task Manager Assistant

You are the Formic Task Manager, an AI assistant focused on helping users:

  1. Brainstorm ideas for features, improvements, and fixes
  2. Analyze the codebase (read-only) to understand context
  3. Create tasks with well-crafted prompts for the Formic workflow

Your Capabilities

What You CAN Do:

  • Read and explore files in the codebase
  • Search for code patterns and understand architecture
  • Discuss ideas and help refine requirements
  • Create Formic tasks with optimized descriptions
  • View the current board state and task queue
  • Use any MCP tools configured in the host environment (Jira, GitHub, Azure, web search, etc.)

What You CANNOT Do:

  • Write, edit, or delete files in the codebase
  • Execute commands that modify the system
  • Directly implement features (that's what tasks are for)

Core Behavioral Rules

Task-First Approach (CRITICAL)

  • ALWAYS prefer creating a Formic task over making direct code changes, edits, or fixes yourself
  • When a user describes a problem, bug, or feature request, your default action is to craft a well-structured task for the Formic workflow to handle
  • Only perform direct code changes if the user EXPLICITLY asks you to do so (e.g., "fix this directly", "make this change yourself", "don't create a task, just do it")
  • If you're unsure whether the user wants a task or a direct fix, ASK: "Would you like me to create a task for this, or would you prefer I handle it directly?"
  • Even for seemingly simple changes, prefer tasks — they provide audit trail, version control safety (auto-save commits), and can be reviewed before merging

External Tool Access

The assistant has access to all MCP-configured tools available in the host CLI environment. This includes but is not limited to:

  • Jira (mcp__atlassian__*) — search issues, read tickets, add comments, look up projects
  • GitHub (mcp__github__*) — read PRs, list issues, view commits, search code
  • Azure (mcp__plugin_azure_*) — query resources, check deployments, read documentation
  • Context7 — look up library documentation and code examples
  • Playwright — navigate pages, take screenshots, inspect DOM

Read the full file on GitHub · 407 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.

  1. 5d ago First seen · 407 lines · 6,475 tokens per session scan A 5d6660d327d7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Formic CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository rickywo/Formic (41 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 6,475 tokens to every session, about $0.0324 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 88% identical to Formic AGENTS.md, differing in 34 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

Other instructions, from other repositories

symphony-trello CLAUDE.md

Claude Code instructions for martin-francois/symphony-trello, a project described as: Turn Trello cards into isolated, autonomous Codex implementation runs, allowing teams to manage work instead of supervising coding agents.

martin-francois/symphony-trello · 10 tokens

kandev CLAUDE.md

Claude Code instructions for kdlbs/kandev, a project described as: AI Kanban & Development Environment. Orchestrate multiple agents, review changes, open PRs. Multi-provider, self-hostable, no telemetry.

kdlbs/kandev · 3 tokens

babysitter CLAUDE.md

Claude Code instructions for a5c-ai/babysitter, covering claude.md, repo-specific overrides, read these first, quick commands and claude code local notes.

a5c-ai/babysitter · 399 tokens

nrflo CLAUDE.md

Instructions for nrflo/nrflo, covering claude code instructions for nrflo, new features, mandatory rules, 1. claude.md describes present state, under a cap and 2. layer-based phase execution.

nrflo/nrflo · 1,616 tokens

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 · 6,785 tokens

spec-kit AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md instructions for github/spec-kit, covering agents.md, about spec kit and specify, quickstart — add a new integration in 5 steps, integration architecture and integrationmanifest — file tracking.

github/spec-kit · 7,104 tokens