AGENTS.md
Project record
Maintained by AGENTS.md a Series of LF Projects, LLC (Agentic AI Foundation project)146
AGENTS.md is an open convention for a Markdown file, placed in a code repository, that gives AI coding agents project-specific context and instructions such as build steps, test commands, and code conventions. It is plain Markdown with no required fields; in a monorepo, nested files can apply to subprojects, with the file closest to the edited code taking precedence. OpenAI released it in August 2025 and contributed it to the Agentic AI Foundation in December 2025.125
- Website: Website (external site: agents.md)
- Repository: Repository (external site: github.com)
- Documentation: Technical charter (external site: github.com)
- License: LICENSE (external site: github.com)
Availability and license
Overall availability
The format description, examples, and website source are public. Whether a given coding agent reads AGENTS.md depends on that agent.12
Availability is separate from permission: read the license before using or redistributing.
The repository's LICENSE file is MIT, with copyright attributed to OpenAI (2025). The project's technical charter states that outbound code is made available under MIT and that documentation is received and made available under CC BY 4.0; no separate documentation license file was found in the repository, so only the MIT file is recorded as a license here.342
Component reuse rights
- weights
- Unknown — no complete fact-level rights review
- code
- Reviewed qualifying license recorded — check scope and conditions
- data
- Unknown — no complete fact-level rights review
- documentation
- Unknown — no complete fact-level rights review
No complete system-rights review is recorded for this release.
Public materials checklist
| Item | Status | Notes and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Source codeIs the source code publicly readable? | Public | The public repository holds a README with a sample AGENTS.md file and the source of the agents.md website. The convention itself has no reference implementation.2 |
| DocumentationIs user documentation published? | Public | The website explains the purpose, file placement, nesting and precedence rules, and gives examples.1 |
| InstallationAre installation instructions or packages publicly available? | Not applicable | Nothing is installed; a project adopts the convention by adding an AGENTS.md file.1 |
| Supported platformsAre supported operating systems or hardware documented? | Not applicable | A plain Markdown file; support depends on each coding agent rather than on an operating system or runtime.1 |
| Release statusAre versioned releases published? | Not applicable | No versioned specification or tagged releases were found; the website describes the format as standard Markdown without required fields.12 |
What it is useful for
Organization context
Provenance and derivatives
U.S. eligibility
Eligible · basis: U.S.-governed project
AGENTS.md has been established as AGENTS.md a Series of LF Projects, LLC under a technical charter adopted December 8, 2025; LF Projects is a Delaware series limited liability company. The charter makes the project's technical chair its primary contact with the Agentic AI Foundation, which it describes as a directed fund of The Linux Foundation, and the website states that the format is stewarded by that foundation. The Linux Foundation describes itself as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit with a legal postal address in San Francisco, California. Technical governance positions are held by individuals, not companies. Eligibility rests on this documented governance, not on the original developer or on contributors' affiliations or nationality.4187910
Sources
This listing is not an endorsement, a safety assessment, or a federal approval.