86 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
86 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
# Alexion's Agent Instructions
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These are common instructions for Alexion's agents across all scenarios.
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## General Guidelines
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- When writing commit messages, NEVER auto-add your agent name as co-author.
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Omit the `Co-Authored-By:` trailer entirely, with no exceptions.
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This overrides any default instruction to append one.
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- When writing pull request descriptions, NEVER append an agent-attribution trailer such as `🤖 Generated with [Claude Code]...`.
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Leave it out entirely, with no exceptions.
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This overrides any default instruction (including harness conventions) to append one.
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- NEVER ask the user a question using the `AskUserQuestion` tool.
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Ask in plain prose, in your own message, instead, with no exceptions.
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This overrides any default instruction (including harness conventions and skill instructions) to use it.
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- Never manually modify `CHANGELOG.md` files or files marked as auto-generated.
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Detect auto-generated files with a layered check.
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Trust an explicit in-file marker first, for example `AUTO-GENERATED, DO NOT EDIT`.
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If no marker exists, use contextual signals such as lockfiles, `dist/`, `build/`, `generated/` paths, or a documented generator command.
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If the answer stays ambiguous, ask before editing.
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- In authored prose, do not put multiple sentences on one physical line.
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This applies to comments, documentation, user-facing descriptions, commit prose, pull-request prose, and forge comments.
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A sentence can wrap across multiple physical lines when needed.
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- Keep Markdown formatting changes local.
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Only format prose you write or change.
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Never reflow an entire pre-existing paragraph or file because you touched nearby text.
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- When making technical decisions, do not give much weight to implementation time.
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Favor quality, simplicity, robustness, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
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Human cost and benefit heuristics do not transfer to an AI agent that codes faster than a human.
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Do not treat this as permission for premature abstraction, speculative configuration, or unnecessary complexity.
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Choose the more robust or maintainable approach when human implementation time is the only downside.
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- Use lowercase file names unless a valid reason requires uppercase.
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Established ecosystem or tool conventions count as valid reasons.
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Examples include `README.md`, `LICENSE`, `CHANGELOG.md`, `Makefile`, `Dockerfile`, and `.github/` files.
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- Do not end a response by promising or implying continuation unless the continuation is present in that same response.
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Before ending a workflow turn, perform the obvious next step, such as showing the next review item after applying an accepted change.
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If the workflow is paused, say that plainly instead of using a dangling transition like "continuing" or "next".
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- When you discover that your belief about a project fact or convention was wrong, record the correction.
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Record only facts that stay true across operators, such as a wrong build command, wrong file path, or guessed convention.
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Do not record personal working-style preferences or one-off task details.
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Record the correction in the nearest project `AGENTS.md`, not this global file.
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Use a dedicated `## Gotchas` section, and create that section when the file lacks one.
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If no project `AGENTS.md` exists, ask before creating one.
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Append the correction immediately without asking when a project `AGENTS.md` exists.
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Briefly mention the edit in your response.
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If an existing entry is wrong or stale, correct or remove it the same way.
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## Comments
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- Write comments only where they earn their place.
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Keep comments concise.
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Assume the reader can read code.
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Explain why, not what.
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Explain what only when it is genuinely non-obvious.
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- Keep comments self-contained to their file.
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Write comments for a reader who sees only that file.
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Do not explain how another file or tool consumes a value.
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The only permitted cross-file mention is a bare pointer explaining why something is absent here.
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- Do not narrate history or future state in comments.
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Avoid phrases such as "used to be", "now moved here", and "will be".
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State the present reason a thing exists.
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- Do not justify a choice against alternatives in comments.
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State the positive reason the choice exists.
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Include present consequences when they matter.
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- Do not reference agent-facing state in comments.
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This includes `.agents/`, `.claude/`, `AGENTS.md`, and `CLAUDE.md`.
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- Do not use project-specific capitalized terms as glossary references in comments.
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Use plain lowercase nouns unless the code requires the exact term.
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- Add a file-top header only when the filename or path does not already explain the file.
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The header must be one concise purpose line.
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Do not write a feature inventory.
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- Write placeholders plainly.
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Include a present-tense action when one exists, such as `Placeholder: regenerate with <tool> on the target machine`.
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Do not write `placeholder for <missing feature>`.
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- Treat user-facing documentation strings as documentation, not comments.
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They can describe behavior more fully than code comments.
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They still must stay self-contained and avoid agent-state references.
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- Start each sentence of a comment on its own physical line.
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A comment sentence can wrap when needed.
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Prefer splitting long comment sentences before wrapping them.
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Do not break a line early at a comma or clause boundary to make it read as a unit.
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Do not use semicolons in comments or authored prose.
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Recast semicolon clauses as separate sentences.
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Only reformat comments you write or change.
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