AGENTS.md — The documentation standard

This file is the contract for every Markdown files in the repo: each tier's job, the writing rules, and the word budgets that verify-doc-budgets enforces. The audit/apply workflow is the dsh-doc-standards skill; the decision record is the doc-tiers-and-budgets RFC.

The tier taxonomy: one home per fact

Every fact has exactly one home — the tier whose job it is — and every other place that needs it links there instead of restating it. A rule restated in two files drifts word-by-word until the copies disagree; a link cannot drift, and verify-md-links keeps it resolving.

Tier	Job	Does NOT belong there
Root `AGENTS.md`	Standing orders: rules an agent needs in context in every session, one to three lines each, linking its home	Stories, worked examples, situational procedures, anything restated from a linked home
Subtree `AGENTS.md` (`packages/`, `examples/`, `docs/`)	Orders specific to that subtree	Repo-wide rules the root file already carries
architecture.md	The system map: services, the loop, extension seams — read before changing `packages/`	Type shapes (→ core-data-structures), per-package detail (→ package READMEs), decision rationale (→ RFCs), implementation-status annotations
core-data-structures/	The type catalog: literal shapes and semantics of the spine and seam vocabulary	Behavior narration (→ architecture.md)
rfc/	Decision records: the why and the what-was-given-up; `implemented/` RFCs describe shipped reality in present tense	Migration plans, test checklists, and spec-speak ("should…") once the decision has shipped
postmortem/	Incident stories — the only tier where war-story narrative belongs	—
cookbook/	Step-by-step how-tos with numbered verify steps	Design rationale (→ the RFC each guide links)
Package README	The per-package contract: config, semantics, limitations, extension points	JSDoc restatement, generated-catalog restatement (event/tool tables), other packages' concerns
development.md	First-stop contributor onboarding: local setup, daily workflow, and CI shape at summary level; a bilingual pair under the i18n contract	Runtime/version rationale (→ RFCs), gate-by-gate enumerations that drift from `package.json` scripts
Generated catalogs: cordis events, cordis services, tool-catalog, config-catalog, persistence-catalog, module-graph.md	Exhaustive enumerations regenerated from source, freshness-gated	Hand edits of any kind
Skills (`.agents/skills/`)	Workflows: how to carry out a recurring task against the contracts	The contracts themselves (→ docs)

Placement test: a story about a bug → postmortem. Why we chose X → RFC. How to do task Y → cookbook. What type Z looks like → core-data-structures. What package P promises → its README. A rule every agent must always obey → root AGENTS.md, one line, linking the home that holds the why.

Writing rules

Document the current state — never the process or history that produced it. Prose describes what the code IS and why, as if it had always been so: no "previously/now/no longer/used to/renamed/moved here", and never name a change unit the reader cannot see — a PR, commit, or stack position — in comments, JSDoc, or test names; name the mechanism instead. A genuinely clarifying contrast is framed against the live alternative as a standing fact, not against the past. The change story belongs in the commit message, the PR description, or an RFC.
A decision worth re-litigating gets an RFC in the same PR. The test: would a maintainer six months out ask "why was it done this way?" and find no answer in the code? If yes, write one (when to write one); mechanical or self-evident changes need none.
One physical line per paragraph (verify-md-wrap): the editor soft-wraps; hard breaks make a one-word edit re-diff the whole paragraph. Prose only — code blocks, tables, and list structure stay; code comments stay under the linter's column limit.
Fenced ts blocks must compile (doc-typecheck); a pasted type definition is fenced ```ts type-equiv and registered in the manifest so it cannot drift (mechanics).
Every new event's JSDoc carries an @mode tag (emit | waterfall | parallel | serial); the catalog generator hard-errors without it. Write the JSDoc to stand alone — it becomes the catalog entry (catalog RFC).
The core-data-structures catalog updates in the same change that reshapes a documented type. verify-type-equiv catches drifted pastes, not never-documented new types (what counts as core).
Bilingual pairs update together: editing either side obligates the counterpart and a re-record in the same change (i18n contract).
Your audience is professional programmers. Prefer concise and straight-forward English over metaphor. Do not overuse words like "gate", "vocabulary", "surface", "seams".

Wordcount Budgets

Every PR has a lesson it wants to append, and without pressure nothing leaves. scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json stores the allowed word-count ceiling for each budgeted standing doc; pnpm run verify-doc-budgets fails when a doc exceeds its ceiling or a budgeted file is missing.

When the gate goes red:

Relocate content that belongs in another tier; leave a one-line link if needed.
Condense content that belongs here but can be shorter.
Raise the ceiling only when the words truly need the space; justify the manifest diff in the PR. A too-low ceiling is a budget bug.

Ceilings keep working headroom: at least 5% above the current size, ratcheted down after trims. Target budgets: root AGENTS.md ≤ 1,500 words; architecture.md ≤ 1,800; each subtree AGENTS.md ≤ 600, except this file ≤ 1,250; packages/README.md ≤ 600. Unbudgeted tiers (package READMEs, RFCs, reference matrices) have no ceiling; review and the slop checklist govern them.

The slop checklist

Hunt these in any doc; the dsh-doc-standards skill runs this list as an audit:

The same rule stated in more than one home. Grep a distinctive phrase; keep one home, convert the rest to links.
Narrated history: "previously", "now", "no longer", "used to", "renamed", "was moved", references to PRs or commits. State the current fact; the why belongs in an RFC, the story in a postmortem or git.
A war story told inline where a one-line rule plus a postmortem/RFC link would do.
Implementation-status annotations in prose or diagrams ("implemented!", "future: …"). Status rots; the repo layout and package manifests carry it.
Hand-restating a generated catalog or JSDoc: event tables, tool arg tables, method signatures. Link instead.
Paragraph walls: one paragraph carrying several rules and parenthetical asides. Split it, or demote the detail to the linked home.
Emphasis inflation: bold, CAPS, or "critically" everywhere means nothing stands out. Reserve emphasis for the clause that changes behavior.
Spec-speak in implemented/ RFCs: "should", migration plans, acceptance checklists. An implemented RFC describes what is, per rfc/implemented/AGENTS.md.

Cross-reference with machine-checkable links, never free prose

When one doc refers to another doc, an RFC, a package README, or any file in the repo, link it with a relative Markdown link to the actual path — never bare prose or a number ("see RFC 005"), which is uncheckable and rots on rename. pnpm run verify-md-links (part of doc-sync; see the cross-link lint RFC) fails when a relative target does not exist, so a rename that orphans a link is caught before review. This is also why RFC files carry dates and topics instead of stable numbers: they survive moves between lifecycle and class folders without dangling references.

The gate checks file existence, not #anchor validity — verify anchors yourself when linking to one.

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