AGENTS.md@rules ยท diff
git:20260911.10606c1 to git:20260914.7b50d6c
44 added, 4 removed. Audit A to A.
- # Usage Limits Directives
+ # Usage Limits
- - Check usage limits before embarking on heavy or multi-step operations.
- - Always be aware of rate limits, quota resets, and model tier costs.
- - Structure workflows so core progress lands early and safely before limits are approached.
+ These rules are always on. They are about how to spend a budget, not about
+ whether to do the work.
+
+ ## The rule that matters most
+
+ A long list is not a reason to work in parallel. Spawning agents to take a list
+ apart is the single most expensive thing an agent can do: a measured fan-out
+ costs between two and a half and six times what the same work costs done in
+ sequence, because every agent re-reads its own context from cold and none of
+ them can report back until they all stop. Do a long list one item at a time, in
+ this session, where the context is already paid for.
+
+ ## Before starting
+
+ - Read the budget line the plugin injects before each turn. It says which
+ window binds, how much of it is gone, and roughly how many turns that leaves.
+ - Plan the order, not the amount. Put the part that is most valuable and most
+ likely to be wanted first, first. Scaling work down is the user's decision,
+ never the agent's.
+ - If a step is mechanical, it does not need the most expensive reasoning
+ setting. Changing the setting mid-session has its own cost, so choose it at
+ the start of a session rather than switching part-way through.
+
+ ## While working
+
+ - Save at clean boundaries. Being cut off should lose nothing.
+ - Do not re-read a file already in context. Do not read a whole file to check
+ one line; search it. Cap what a search returns.
+ - Prefer one command that answers the question over three that approach it.
+
+ ## When the ceiling is reached
+
+ The ceiling is enforced, not advised. Past it, fan-out calls are refused
+ outright and everything else keeps working. A refusal is not an error and not a
+ reason to stop: do the work sequentially instead. Do not retry a refused call,
+ and do not ask for the ceiling to be raised.
+
+ ## What not to do
+
+ - Do not stop early, narrow the task, or hand back a shorter version of the job
+ because the budget looks tight. Budget left unspent at the reset is destroyed,
+ not saved, so stopping early wastes it twice.
+ - Do not claim a saving you have not measured.