Octop is a self-hosted, multi-user AI assistant that runs multiple specialized agents and connects them to chat interfaces, tools, and external services. It is for individuals, families, and teams who want a locally operated assistant with shared experts and persistent capabilities. Catalogue add-ons extend its agent and assistant workflows.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to TencentCloud/Octop. 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/TencentCloud/Octop/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/TencentCloud/OctopWrote 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/tencentcloud/octop/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/tencentcloud/octop/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/tencentcloud/octop/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/tencentcloud/octop/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/tencentcloud/octop/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 | $0.08458 | $0.08458 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.03383 | $0.03383 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.01692 | $0.01692 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00846 | $0.00846 |
Grade A, and why
Octop 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 4d 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 — 438 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
Navigation guide for AI coding agents working in this repository.
1. Collaboration principles
Favor caution over speed; trivial tasks may relax these rules. These principles complement §10 Change workflow and §11 Communication.
Think before writing
- State assumptions up front; ask when unsure — do not guess.
- When multiple interpretations exist, list them and let the user choose — do not pick silently.
- Suggest simpler approaches when they exist; push back when appropriate.
- Stop when blocked; name exactly what is unclear.
- Name the owning repository before editing (see Runtime libraries).
Simplicity first
- Write the minimum code that solves the problem; no unrequested features, abstractions, or config knobs.
- Do not add defensive error handling for scenarios that cannot realistically happen.
- Trim the diff when it grows unnecessarily large.
Surgical edits
- Touch only lines directly related to the task; do not opportunistically "clean up" nearby code, comments, or formatting.
- Do not refactor working code or unify style just because it differs from yours.
- Unrelated dead code: mention it, do not delete it proactively.
- Remove orphan imports, variables, and functions you introduced.
Verifiable outcomes
- Turn tasks into verifiable goals (what to test, which command proves success).
- For multi-step work, sketch a short plan:
step → verify: … - Before saying "done", provide verification evidence; the default ship bar is
make allgreen (see §6 Run commands, §10 Change workflow).
2. What this is
Octop — self-hosted AI assistant platform (multi-user, multi-agent). One Python wheel: FastAPI backend + React dashboard + Click CLI. No external queue. No required services beyond an LLM provider.
Runtime libraries
Octop hosts four libraries. Put the change in the library that owns the behavior. This repo only wires users, the control-plane database, HTTP, CLI, dashboard, and cron.
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.
- 4d ago Changed · +18 lines · +356 tokens per session e7a44a81fa47
- 11d ago Changed · +1 lines · +40 tokens per session 80f2920e0837
- 24d ago Changed · +1 lines · +71 tokens per session 0cabbd6cc8c9
- 1mo ago Changed · +1 lines · +45 tokens per session c78654069512
- 1mo ago Changed · +2 lines · +63 tokens per session 3d41c42483ae
- 1mo ago Changed · -14 tokens per session 222e9eeb0595
- 1mo ago Changed · -2 tokens per session 7adb71a924b7
- 2mo ago First seen · 415 lines · 7,899 tokens per session scan A 058ee2281e73
Octop AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository TencentCloud/Octop (11,705 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 8,458 tokens to every session, about $0.0338 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.
Octop AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octop AGENTS.mdTencentCloud/Octop | Instructions file | 12k | today | MIT | A | 8,458 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | today | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |