AI Assistant Instructions

Teaching AI assistants how to help you better. Yes, it's AI instructions written with AI assistance. We've come full circle.

Scope: Commands, skills, agents, and hooks have been migrated to JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins and are delivered as portable plugins. This repository now maintains the generic pieces that aren't plugin-delivered: the canonical AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md / GEMINI.md configuration, the auto-loaded rules in agentsmd/rules/, the 5-step development workflow in agentsmd/workflows/, the permission framework in agentsmd/permissions/, and the CI / validation tooling that keeps all of the above honest.

What Is This?

A centralized collection of instructions, workflows, and configurations for AI coding assistants. Drop these into your projects and get consistent, high-quality AI assistance across Claude, Copilot, and Gemini.

Think of it as a style guide, but for your AI pair programmer.

Repo boundaries

The AI configuration layer is split across three repositories. This repo owns the rules. claude-code-plugins owns commands, skills, agents, and hooks. docs owns the public-facing reference site at docs.jacobpevans.com.

graph LR
    Rules["**ai-assistant-instructions**<br/>rules · workflows · permissions"]
    Plugins["**claude-code-plugins**<br/>commands · skills · agents · hooks"]
    Docs["**docs**<br/>public-facing reference"]
    Session(("Developer session"))

    Rules -->|"auto-loaded"| Session
    Plugins -->|"marketplace install"| Session
    Docs -.->|"read by humans and AI"| Session

    style Rules fill:#d4e6ff,stroke:#4a90d9,color:#000
    style Plugins fill:#fff3d4,stroke:#d4a017,color:#000
    style Docs fill:#e8d4ff,stroke:#8a4ad9,color:#000

Full rule, decision table, and update workflow: docs.jacobpevans.com/ai-development/repo-boundaries.

For the broader Nix ecosystem context and session lifecycle diagrams, see docs/diagrams.md.

Prerequisites

• Git 2.30+ (for worktree support)
• GitHub CLI (gh) 2.0+ (for PR/issue management)
• (Optional) Python 3.8+ for validation hooks
• (Optional) Node.js 18+ for markdown linting

Installation

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/JacobPEvans/ai-assistant-instructions.git

# 2. Copy AGENTS.md into your project
cp ai-assistant-instructions/AGENTS.md your-project/

#    Optional: copy the auto-loaded rules too
mkdir -p your-project/agentsmd
cp -r ai-assistant-instructions/agentsmd/rules your-project/agentsmd/

# 3. Create vendor symlinks so each AI tool reads the same source
cd your-project
ln -sf AGENTS.md CLAUDE.md
ln -sf AGENTS.md GEMINI.md

# 4. Install the plugins from JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins
#    (commands, skills, agents, and hooks live there, not here)
claude marketplace add JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins
claude plugin install git-workflows github-workflows git-standards

# 5. Verify setup
claude doctor

Or just browse the documentation and cherry-pick what you need.

Usage

Once installed, the AI assistants read CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / GEMINI.md automatically at session start, and the auto-loaded rules in agentsmd/rules/ are pulled in for every session. Plugin-delivered commands and skills from JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins are invoked via slash commands (/refresh-repo, /finalize-pr, /ship, etc.) or directly by name.

See the 5-step workflow below for the expected development loop, and AGENTS.md for the full set of rules, routing decisions, and on-demand standards.

Directory Structure

.
├── AGENTS.md                  # Canonical configuration (CLAUDE.md / GEMINI.md are symlinks)
├── agentsmd/
│   ├── rules/                 # Auto-loaded universal and path-scoped rules
│   ├── workflows/             # The 5-step development workflow
│   ├── permissions/           # Permission framework (allow / ask / deny JSON configs)
│   └── docs/                  # Permission and workflow support docs
├── .claude/rules              # Symlink → agentsmd/rules
├── .copilot/instructions.md   # Symlink → AGENTS.md
├── .gemini/config.yaml        # Gemini-specific config
├── scripts/                   # Validation helpers (token limits, permissions, links)
└── .github/workflows/         # CI gates (markdown, spellcheck, link check, CodeQL, release-please)

Claude-Code plugins (commands, skills, agents, hooks) live in JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins and are consumed via the git-workflows, github-workflows, git-standards, code-standards, infra-standards, project-standards, ai-delegation, config-management, content-guards, git-guards, script-guards, codeql-resolver, and session-analytics plugins (among others).

Supported AI Assistants

The 5-Step Workflow

This repo centers on a rigorous development workflow:

1. Research & Explore - Understand before you code
2. Plan & Document - Write the "what" and "why" before the "how"
3. Define Success & PR - Set acceptance criteria upfront
4. Implement & Verify - Build with tests, verify as you go
5. Finalize & Commit - Clean commits, passing CI

Full details in agentsmd/workflows/.

Plugin-delivered commands, skills, agents, and hooks

All slash commands, skills, agents, and hooks previously listed in this README now ship as plugins in JacobPEvans/claude-code-plugins. Install the marketplace and enable the plugins you need:

See AGENTS.md for the full on-demand standards table and the auto-loaded rules reference.

Core Concepts

The documentation covers:

• Code Standards - Consistency across languages
• Documentation Standards - AI-friendly markdown
• Infrastructure Standards - Terraform/Terragrunt patterns
• Permission System - How AI tool permissions integrate with nix-config
• DRY Principle - Why everything symlinks to one place
• Memory Bank - Maintaining AI context across sessions
• Remote Commit Workflow - Making commits via GitHub API without local clone

Browse agentsmd/rules/ and agentsmd/docs/.

Advanced: This repo integrates with nix-config for unified permission management across AI tools. This is optional - the basic setup works standalone. See agentsmd/docs/permission-system.md for details.

Need Help?

• Codex Quick Start - repo analysis, prompt patterns, and Codex parity backlog
• 📖 Documentation Home - Getting started guides and references
• 🐛 Issues - Report bugs or request features

Contributing

Contributions welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the details, though the short version is: open a PR, don't be a jerk, and I'll probably merge it.

Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it responsibly. See SECURITY.md for details.

License

Apache 2.0 - Use it, modify it, just keep the attribution.

Built by a human, refined by AI, used by both.