Guardrails / docs

Repository instructs the coding agents working in it

docs/agent-instructions@v1

The repository carries an agent instruction file, and it is long enough to say something and short enough to be read.

Id	docs/agent-instructions
Version	v1
Category	docs
Default severity	info
Interpreter	python3
Timeout	30 seconds
Violations tolerated	0
Collects	files

Collectors

This guardrail gathers nothing itself. It depends on the collectors below, which the CLI runs once per build before any check, and reads what they found out of GUARDRAIL_FACTS. A collector that collects nothing skips this guardrail rather than failing it.

Collector	Gathers	Inputs it is given
files	Presence, size and line counts of the well known files a repository is expected to carry, plus any extra path the guardrail asks for.	paths

The inputs above are this guardrail's own, passed straight through. Configuring one in buildnote.json changes what is collected, and two guardrails configured the same way share the one collection.

Configuration

{
  "guardrails": {
      "failOn": "error",
      "comment": true,
      "checks": [
          {
              "use": "docs/agent-instructions@v1",
              "severity": "info",
              "with": {
                  "paths": "AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md,.github/copilot-instructions.md",
                  "minLines": "10",
                  "maxLines": "500"
              },
              "exemptions": []
          }
      ]
  }
}

Inputs

Input	Description	Default	Environment variable
paths	Comma separated paths, any one of which satisfies the guardrail. The first one present is the one measured.	AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md,.github/copilot-instructions.md	GUARDRAIL_INPUT_PATHS
minLines	How many non-blank lines it must have before it counts as written.	10	GUARDRAIL_INPUT_MINLINES
maxLines	How many non-blank lines it may have before it is too long to be attended to. 0 means no ceiling.	500	GUARDRAIL_INPUT_MAXLINES

How to fix

Add an AGENTS.md at the repository root saying how the project is built, how it is tested, and the conventions a change is held to:

# AGENTS.md

## Commands
`./gradlew check` builds and tests every module.

## Conventions
Commits follow Conventional Commits. Write no comments.

See agents.md. An agent with no instructions rediscovers the conventions from the code every session and gets them wrong at the edges; an instruction file nobody trimmed is past the point where the model attends to all of it, which fails the same way while looking answered.

More in docs

• docs/changelog. The repository carries a changelog, so what changed between two releases is written down rather than reconstructed from commits.
• docs/code-of-conduct. The repository carries a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, so the standard contributors are held to is written down and so is who enforces it.
• docs/contributing. The repository carries a CONTRIBUTING.md saying how a change is proposed, built and reviewed.
• docs/license-present. The repository carries a licence file, so what may be done with the code is written down rather than assumed.
• docs/readme. The repository has a README, and it says more than its title.
• docs/security-policy. The repository carries a SECURITY.md naming where a security problem should be reported.

All 7 docs guardrails