Re: [PATCH] docs: add AGENTS.md as a symlink to README

[Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 04:44:52PM +0100, Bradley Morgan wrote:
>On 24 September 2026 16:20:15 BST, Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> wrote:
>>On Thu, Sep 24, 2026 at 04:08:08PM +0100, Bradley Morgan wrote:
>>> On 24 September 2026 14:49:45 BST, Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
>>wrote:
>>>> Most coding agents have standardized on AGENTS.md as the file they load
>>>> automatically from the root of a repository. README already tells AI
>>>> tools to read and follow Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst,
>>>> but that only helps if the agent decides to read README before acting,
>>>> which in practice it often doesn't.
>>>>
>>>> Add a top-level AGENTS.md symlink to README, so agents load it on their
>>>> own and follow its pointer to the AI guidelines. This keeps a single
>>>> entry point for every reader, and avoids adding a separate copy of the
>>>> policy that could drift from the RST.
>>>>
>>>> As an example, two different agents were asked to "create a new commit
>>>> renaming the release (in the Makefile) to AI Test".
>>>>
>>>> Without AGENTS.md, the first agent added a Signed-off-by for the user
>>on
>>>> its own. It should never have done that: only the human submitter can
>>>> certify the Developer Certificate of Origin, after reviewing the
>>change.
>>>> It also used its own attribution tag instead of Assisted-by:
>>>>
>>>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test
>>>>>
>>>>> Co-Authored-By: <model name> <noreply@...>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
>>>>
>>>> The second agent added no attribution at all:
>>>>
>>>>> Rename release to AI Test
>>>>
>>>> With AGENTS.md in place, neither agent added a Signed-off-by, and both
>>>> used the Assisted-by tag. README itself mentions neither tag, so both
>>>> agents followed its pointer to coding-assistants.rst:
>>>>
>>>>> Makefile: rename release to "AI Test"
>>>>>
>>>>> Change the release name from "Baby Opossum Posse" to "AI Test".
>>>>>
>>>>> Assisted-by: LLM
>>>>
>>>>> Makefile: rename release to AI Test
>>>>>
>>>>> Assisted-by: LLM
>>>>
>>>> Both agents also followed the kernel's general guidelines more closely.
>>>> The second agent's subject gained the "subsystem: summary phrase" form
>>>> that submitting-patches.rst asks for, instead of a bare "Rename release
>>>> to AI Test", and the first agent added a body describing the change.
>>>>
>>>> Assisted-by: LLM
>>>> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
>>>
>>> NAK, we could add to memories that to read soandso file before every
>>> patch, and then it wouldn't increase tokens then?
>>
>>Could you help me understand what you meant here? I'm aware some agents
>>use a
>>notion of "memories", but I don't think they standardized on it in any
>>way, nor
>>how we could incorporate them here?
>>
>
>They use MEMORY.md sometimes.

There's no common MEMORY.md. Claude Code keeps one per checkout under
~/.claude, Codex keeps a single one for all projects that it builds from past
sessions when its memories feature is enabled, and Gemini saves memories into
~/.gemini/GEMINI.md. All of these live in the user's home directory, so there's
nothing we can ship in the tree. AGENTS.md is the in-tree file most agents
read.

-- 
Thanks,
Sasha