Anchor — the production-grade AGENTS.md template for AI coding agents.
_{Keep your agents grounded. 51 sections of battle-tested rules distilled from 100+ real-world projects, academic research, and production failures.}

Quick Start · What's Inside · File Structure · Philosophy · Research · Usage Guide · Platforms

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🚀 Quick Start

# 1. Clone the template
git clone https://github.com/peva3/anchor.git

# 2. Copy AGENTS.md into your project
cp anchor/AGENTS.md ./your-project/AGENTS.md

# 3. Copy supporting agent config files
cp anchor/CLAUDE.md ./your-project/
cp -r anchor/.cursor/rules/ ./your-project/.cursor/
cp anchor/.github/copilot-instructions.md ./your-project/.github/

# 4. Optional — bootstrap an entire new project from scratch
cp anchor/STARTUP.md ./your-new-project/STARTUP.md
# Follow the STARTUP.md phases — it's a step-by-step guide for AI agents

After copying, delete any sections that don't apply to your project. The template is designed to be trimmed — each project should keep only relevant sections, targeting ≤2,000 lines and ≤5,000 tokens (see Section 51.3).

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📦 What's Inside

51 production-grade sections organized into 7 capability domains:

Code Quality & Safety

Section	Content
1-9	Core principles, commit protocol, shell execution rules, code style, project structure, TODO.md standard, Docker, testing, linting
10-14	Error handling, configuration, API design, security, logging
27	Comprehensive code quality standards — Python idioms, anti-patterns, security constraints, performance patterns, docstring quality, error handling patterns, 19-point checklist

Git, CI/CD & Release Engineering

Section	Content
15	Git workflow — human-sounding commit messages with WHY-focused pattern
33-36	PR size standards (800-line gate), AI anti-pattern detection, PR description template with HUMAN/AGENT disclosure, explicit NEVER list
37-40	Pre-commit hooks, CI/CD pipeline standards (ci/release/deploy), semantic versioning & Keep a Changelog, code coverage enforcement (80% floor)

Production Operations

Section	Content
29-32	Operational patterns (circuit breaker, dead letter queue, middleware stack, semantic cache), health endpoint specification, production security (prompt injection detection, audit logging, key encryption), Docker & Kubernetes
41-44	Observability (structured JSON logging, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, SLOs), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), database backup & recovery, secrets management (tiered strategy)

Testing Excellence

Section	Content
45-49	Flaky test management (quarantine mechanism), mutation testing (mutmut + arid nodes), performance benchmarks, contract testing (Pact), chaos engineering (Netflix principles)

AI Agent Guidance

Section	Content
21-26	Agent instruction guidance (from AgentBench/CAMEL), multi-agent cooperation patterns, verification gates, common failure modes, gotchas, getting help
28	Default tech stack playbook — FastAPI, Next.js, Gin, databases, decision tree

Intentional Minimalism

Section	Content
50	Decision ladder (YAGNI→stdlib→native→existing dep→one line→minimum code), structured tradeoff comments, safety carve-outs, output discipline, over-engineering review vocabulary, honesty boundaries, tests-are-not-bloat policy, self-referential governance

Instruction Architecture

Section	Content
51	Trigger-based lazy loading, self-maintaining meta-instructions, context budget awareness, model capability awareness, instruction provenance tracking

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🎯 Why This Exists

Problem: AI coding agents receive instructions from scattered, inconsistent sources. Most AGENTS.md files are 80-line checklists written in 10 minutes. They miss critical patterns around testing, security, CI/CD, multi-agent coordination, observability, and production operations.

Result: Agents make the same mistakes repeatedly — skipping tests, writing unreviewable PRs, ignoring security, creating untracked technical debt.

Solution: This template was built by systematically analyzing 100+ real-world AGENTS.md files, 14 TODO.md files, 22 research papers (AgentBench, CAMEL, MetaGPT), and production codebases. Every section addresses a specific, observed failure mode.

Guarantee: No section exists "for completeness." Every rule eliminates a real failure mode observed in the wild. The file is self-governing — Section 50.8 requires agents editing AGENTS.md to follow every rule within it.

Comparison

	Typical AGENTS.md	This Template
Sections	5-15	51
Testing depth	"Write tests"	Flaky management, mutation testing, contract testing, chaos engineering, coverage enforcement
Security	"No secrets in code"	Prompt injection detection, audit logging, key encryption, IP whitelisting, 6-category NEVER list
Production	Basic Docker	Circuit breaker, DLQ, middleware stack, health endpoints, structured logging, OpenTelemetry, SLOs
Multi-agent	Not covered	Sequential/hierarchical/collaborative patterns, role templates, termination criteria
Code quality	Ruff/mypy mention	19-point checklist, anti-pattern catalog, bloat detection, AI-specific laziness/uncertainty signals
Git workflow	"Descriptive commits"	WHY-focused format, human-sounding messages, conventional commits, PR templates, size gates
Self-governance	None	AGENTS.md governs its own maintenance — self-referential rules prevent staleness

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📁 File Structure

anchor/
├── AGENTS.md                  # ⭐ The main template — 51 sections, copy this into your project
├── STARTUP.md                 # 🚀 AI agent bootstrap guide — builds a project from scratch in 4 phases
├── README.md                  # 📖 This file
├── .gitignore                 # 🔒 Standard gitignore (includes tests/)
│
├── CLAUDE.md                  # 🤖 Anthropic Claude agent config (references AGENTS.md)
├── CLAUDE.desktop.md          # 💻 Anthropic Claude desktop app config
│
├── .github/
│   └── copilot-instructions.md  # 🔵 GitHub Copilot instructions
│
├── .cursor/                   # 🟣 Cursor IDE agent rules
│   └── rules/
│       └── project-rules.mdc
│
├── .windsurf/                 # 🟠 Windsurf IDE agent config
│   └── config.md
│
├── .continue/                 # 🟢 Continue.dev agent config
│   └── config.md
│
├── .claude/                   # ⚙️ Claude config (JSON)
│   └── config.json
│
├── docs/                      # 📚 Supporting documentation
│   └── AGENT_INSTRUCTIONS.md  # Universal fallback agent instructions
│
├── research/                  # 🔬 Academic research backing all sections
│   ├── index.md               # Research catalog
│   ├── papers/                # AgentBench, CAMEL, MetaGPT, Voyager, HuggingGPT
│   └── whitepapers/           # Agentic AI best practices
│
└── tests/                     # 🧪 Quality validation tools
    └── test_agents_md_quality.py  # Automated audit: contradictions, code validity, workflow coverage

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🔬 Research Foundation

Every section is backed by peer-reviewed research or production experience:

Source	Type	Applied To
AgentBench (arXiv:2308.03688)	ICLR 2024 Paper	Failure modes (IF/IA/TLE/CLE), instruction following evaluation
CAMEL (arXiv:2303.17760)	NeurIPS 2023 Paper	Multi-agent cooperation patterns, role assignment, termination criteria
MetaGPT (arXiv:2308.00352)	ICLR 2024 Paper	Sequential handoff patterns, verification gates, SOPs
PEP 8 / Google Style Guide	Standards	Code quality, docstring format, type annotations
Google Testing Blog	Industry	Flaky test management, mutation testing, test isolation
Netflix Chaos Engineering	Industry	Chaos experiment design, steady-state hypothesis, blast radius
Keep a Changelog / SemVer	Community Standards	Versioning, changelog format, release automation
Microsoft C4W Checklist	Industry	CI/CD, coverage thresholds, observability, security scanning
Production Codebase Analysis	Empirical	Circuit breaker, DLQ, middleware stack, health endpoints, audit logging, prompt injection detection

Full research catalog: research/index.md

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🛠 How to Use

For an existing project:

# Copy the core template
cp anchor/AGENTS.md ./my-project/AGENTS.md

# Trim to fit — keep only relevant sections
# Target: ≤2,000 lines for project-specific use (Section 51.3)

For a new project:

# Copy STARTUP.md and follow its 4-phase bootstrap
cp anchor/STARTUP.md ./my-new-project/
# Phase 1: Directory structure
# Phase 2: All agent config files
# Phase 3: .gitignore, .env.example, README.md, TODO.md, DEEPDIVE.md
# Phase 4: git init and commit

Customization checklist:

• Delete inapplicable sections (keep only what matches your tech stack)
• Update tech stack defaults (Section 28) to match your choices
• Set your own branch protection rules (Section 38.6)
• Configure your own CI/CD templates (Section 38)
• Add project-specific gotchas to Section 25
• Fill in DEEPDIVE.md with your architecture narrative (Section 5)

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🤖 Supported AI Agent Platforms

The template ships with config files for 8+ AI coding agent platforms. All reference AGENTS.md as the single source of truth:

Platform	Config File	Format
Claude Code (Anthropic)	CLAUDE.md	Markdown
Claude Desktop	CLAUDE.desktop.md	Markdown
GitHub Copilot	.github/copilot-instructions.md	Markdown
Cursor	.cursor/rules/project-rules.mdc	MDC
Windsurf	.windsurf/config.md	Markdown
Continue.dev	.continue/config.md	Markdown
OpenCode	AGENTS.md (primary)	Markdown
Any agent	docs/AGENT_INSTRUCTIONS.md	Markdown (universal fallback)

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🧪 Quality Validation

The AGENTS.md file is self-tested. Run the audit:

python3 tests/test_agents_md_quality.py

The audit checks:

• Section structure — All 51 sections present, sequentially numbered
• Contradiction detection — No conflicting NEVER/ALWAYS rules
• Actionable MUST rules — Every MUST rule links to concrete implementation
• Code block validity — All 66 Python blocks parse correctly
• Workflow coverage — 9 common development workflows all covered
• Markdown validity — No broken references or unclosed blocks
• Size & density — Section balance analysis

Status: 0 failures. 0 warnings. See the test output inline in the tool results above.

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📊 Stats

Metric	Value
Sections	51
Lines	5,780
Words	~25,500
Python code blocks	66
Research sources	22 (12 papers, 10 projects)
Agent platforms supported	8+
DOCKER/K8s templates	4
CI/CD workflow templates	3
Security patterns	9
Testing patterns	12
Anti-patterns documented	24

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🤝 Contributing

This template follows its own rules. Before contributing:

1. Read Section 50.8 — AGENTS.md governs itself. Agents editing it must follow all rules herein.
2. Read Section 51.2 — Propose additions when you encounter a failure mode not yet covered.
3. Run the audit — python3 tests/test_agents_md_quality.py must pass.
4. Follow Section 33 — PRs must stay under 800 lines.
5. Follow Section 15 — Commit messages must be human-sounding, WHY-focused.
6. Follow Section 35 — Use the PR template with HUMAN/AGENT disclosure sections.

What to contribute:

• Rules that eliminate a specific, observed failure mode
• Research backing for existing or new rules
• Cross-references between related sections
• Test examples demonstrating correct behavior

What NOT to contribute:

• Rules without a demonstrated failure mode they prevent
• "Nice to have" sections that duplicate existing coverage
• Tool-version-specific trivia (pin those in config files, not AGENTS.md)
• General advice already covered by PEP 8 or standard style guides

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📜 License

MIT — use it, modify it, ship it. Attribution appreciated.

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_{Anchor — keep your agents grounded. 51 sections. 0 filler. Built from 100+ real-world AGENTS.md files, 22 research papers, and production codebases.}