Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to usewhale/Whale. 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/usewhale/Whale/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/usewhale/WhaleWrote 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/usewhale/whale/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/usewhale/whale/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/usewhale/whale/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/usewhale/whale/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/usewhale/whale/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 | $0.00691 | $0.00691 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00276 | $0.00276 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00138 | $0.00138 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00069 | $0.00069 |
Grade A, and why
Whale 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 43 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Repository Guidelines
Project Structure & Module Organization
Whale is a Go CLI/TUI agent. The entrypoint is cmd/whale. Most application code lives under internal/:
internal/ui/cliandinternal/tuifor Cobra commands and terminal UIinternal/agentfor the turn loop, approvals, hooks, and tool orchestrationinternal/toolsfor built-in tools such as shell, patch, file, and web actionsinternal/app,internal/session,internal/memory, andinternal/storefor runtime state and persistenceinternal/evalsfor replay and harness-based eval coveragedocs/for user-facing configuration docsscripts/smoke/for live API smoke checks that require a real DeepSeek key
Keep new packages focused and place tests next to the code they cover.
Build, Test, and Development Commands
make build(orgo build -o bin/whale .on Windows without Make) buildsbin/whalewith the repo-local.gocachemake run(orgo build -o bin/whale . && ./bin/whale) builds and launches the interactive TUImake test(orgo test ./...) runs the full offline Go test suitemake test-tui(orgo test ./internal/tui/...) runs the TUI-focused subsetmake test-evals(orgo test ./internal/evals/...) runs eval and replay testsmake cleanremovesbin/and.gocache
Prefer Makefile targets on macOS/Linux. On Windows (where make is not available by default), use the equivalent go commands listed above. The .gocache directory is managed automatically so cache paths stay consistent regardless of which method you use.
Coding Style & Naming Conventions
Follow standard Go style: tabs for indentation, gofmt formatting, concise package names, and exported identifiers only when cross-package use is required. Prefer table-driven tests for behavior matrices. Name files by responsibility, such as tool_repair.go, model_test.go, or preferences_test.go.
Testing Guidelines
Tests use Go's testing package. Name tests TestXxx and keep them adjacent to the implementation. Prefer offline tests with temp dirs, fake providers, and deterministic fixtures; live network checks belong in scripts/smoke/. For user-visible CLI/TUI changes, add or update behavior-level tests, not just helper-unit coverage.
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 First seen · 43 lines · 691 tokens per session scan A b89eaa328ef8
Whale AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository usewhale/Whale (928 stars, last pushed 11d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 691 tokens to every session, about $0.0028 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.