On Sun, Sep 27, 2026 at 04:42:06AM +0200, Antheas Kapenekakis wrote:
I do not have a problem with coding-assistants.rst staying as it is now. But it does not make for a good agents.md file. And neither does the readme.
What makes one good? In my tests this one did its job: both agents followed the kernel's rules, for about 1.3k to 2.4k tokens. If you have a case where it makes an agent do worse, I'd like to see it.
I think there might be a misunderstanding with what an agents.md file is meant to do. It is meant to be a small file that lists a few notable things agents should know about a project.
The spec at agents.md doesn't say that. It has no required fields or length, and says anything you'd tell a new teammate belongs there. OpenAI's own AGENTS.md in the Codex repo is 320 lines, about four times the size of README.
Why should the kernel make an exception here and say no, this is the agents.md file you get
It's a default for people who haven't written their own, the same as .clang-format, .cocciconfig, or .pylintrc. Anyone with their own file can still use that instead, and the spec says "explicit user chat prompts override everything".
what is the point of creating a shared agents.md file? Is it to help experienced kernel developers?
Yes, and everyone else too. README is an index, so it helps the agent figure out where to find things, whether that's an experienced developer working in a subsystem or someone asking how some part of the kernel works. It also covers the patches maintainers get from people who never write their own. In my tests, two current agents without AGENTS.md got the basics wrong: one added my Signed-off-by itself, the other added no attribution. With it, both got it right.
Because omitting sign-offs is not helpful, they will need to add one even if they do not understand what it is
If someone adds their sign-off without understanding what it certifies, that's on them. We can't have agents add it for them just because some people would ignore its meaning anyway. If you think a hand-written AGENTS.md would do better, feel free to write one and propose it. For now, this one seems to be working just fine. -- Thanks, Sasha
