Project instructions

Polyglot reads a project instructions file and prepends it to the system prompt, so the agent starts every session already knowing your build command, your conventions, and what not to touch - without you re-typing it each time.

AGENTS.md

- Package manager is `pnpm`, never `npm`.
- Run `pnpm test` before claiming a change works.
- `src/generated/` is codegen - never edit it by hand.
- Prefer named exports; this repo has no default exports.

Drop that in your repo root and every polyglot session in that directory picks it up. /status shows which files are loaded.

Which files

Path	Purpose
<repo>/POLYGLOT.md	Polyglot-specific project rules. Highest priority.
<repo>/AGENTS.md	The cross-tool standard (opencode, Codex, …). A repo that already has one just works.
~/.polyglot/POLYGLOT.md	Your personal rules, applied in every project.
~/.polyglot/AGENTS.md	Personal cross-tool rules.

All that exist are concatenated into one ## Project instructions block in the system prompt, each section headed with # From <path>. The order is global before project, and AGENTS.md before POLYGLOT.md, so a project POLYGLOT.md comes last and reads as the most specific. If you have genuinely conflicting rules across files, state the winner explicitly rather than relying on ordering.

Scope and limits

• Repo root only. Nested per-directory files aren’t walked (yet).
• 16 KB per file. Anything past that is dropped with a visible [... truncated] marker - this is context for every turn, it shouldn’t crowd out the conversation.
• Empty or whitespace-only files are ignored.
• Sub-agents inherit it. Work delegated via the task tool gets the same instructions, so a sub-agent editing the repo follows the same conventions.
• CLAUDE.md is not read. Deliberate for now - copy the parts you want into AGENTS.md.

Turning it off

Set POLYGLOT_NO_INSTRUCTIONS=1 (or true) to skip loading entirely - useful for a clean-room run or when benchmarking the bare system prompt.

What to put in it

Good: build/test/lint commands, directory conventions, code-style rules that aren’t obvious from the code, “always do X before Y”, areas that are generated or vendored.

Skip: anything already clear from the code, long prose explanations, secrets (this text goes to the model provider like any other prompt - see Data handling).