Project AGENTS.md

Drop an AGENTS.md in your repo and every praisonai CLI command auto-loads it as project context

Place an AGENTS.md file at your project root and every praisonai chat, run, code, and tui command automatically injects it into the agent’s system prompt — no flags needed.

from praisonaiagents import Agent

agent = Agent(
    name="Dev",
    instructions="Help with coding tasks",
)

agent.start("How should I structure new modules in this project?")

The user asks a coding question; AGENTS.md from the project root is injected automatically.

How It Works

Auto-Discovery

Quick Start

1. Create an AGENTS.md at the repo root

   # Project Context
   
   ## Tech Stack
   - Python 3.12, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy
   - Tests with pytest; coverage >= 90%
   
   ## Style
   - PEP 8; type hints everywhere; docstrings for public APIs
   
   ## Do
   - Use dependency injection for database sessions
   - Write one test per behaviour, not per function
   
   ## Don't
   - Import from circular modules
   - Use `global` variables

   Now any praisonai command run inside the repo picks this up automatically:

   praisonai code "Add a new user endpoint"

   The agent already knows your stack, style rules, and conventions.

2. Disable for a single run

   praisonai code --no-context "Explain what Python is"

   The --no-context flag skips AGENTS.md injection for that run only.

3. Disable globally with an env var

   PRAISON_NO_CONTEXT=true praisonai run task.yaml

   Useful in CI jobs where project context would waste tokens and slow things down.

4. Tune the token budget

   Large AGENTS.md files are trimmed to fit. Set the budget in .praison.json:

   {
     "context_token_budget": 4000
   }

   Default is 8000 characters.

Discovery Rules

File names searched (in order): AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, PRAISON.md, GEMINI.md

Stop condition: A .git directory — the walk-up never crosses a git repository boundary.

Nearest wins: The first matching file found (starting from cwd and walking up) is used. Deeper files override ancestor files.

Precedence

What to Put in AGENTS.md

Keep it concise — the budget is finite. Useful content includes:

• Tech stack — language versions, key frameworks, database
• Code conventions — naming, formatting, patterns to follow
• Do/Don’t rules — specific things the agent should or should not do
• Key file locations — where models, routes, tests live
• Project-specific vocabulary — domain terms, component names

Avoid:

• Long prose the agent doesn’t need for most tasks
• Secrets or credentials (they will end up in logs)
• Entire source files or large schemas — use --file flags instead

Best Practices

env:
  PRAISON_NO_CONTEXT: "true"

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