optimize-agents-md

Write lean, high-compliance AGENTS.md files and point CLAUDE.md at them — by symlink or @AGENTS.md import — so every AI coding tool reads the same source of truth.

Core philosophy

Frontier LLMs reliably follow only ~150-200 instructions per session, and Claude Code's system prompt already consumes about 50 of those slots. Every line added to AGENTS.md dilutes compliance across all rules, not just the newest ones. Ruthless curation is the foundational practice: a focused 60-80 line file Claude actually follows beats a 300-line file it mostly ignores.

Compliance also decays over long conversations — from 95%+ at messages 1-2 to 20-60% by messages 6-10. This is why the file should encode preferences, not hard requirements. Hard requirements belong in hooks, formatters, or CI. AGENTS.md is for the stuff that's hard to enforce mechanically.