deepseek-harness/docs/AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md — The documentation standard

This file defines document structure, Markdown tiers, writing rules, and verify-doc-budgets ceilings. Use dsh-doc-standards for placement and validation, and dsh-prose-standard for required coverage and editorial judgment; the doc-tiers Agent Note owns rationale.

Document structure

These rules apply to human-facing documentation; Agent Notes remain outside their scope. A postmortem is an incident-scoped reference; chronology records evidence, not a teaching sequence. A document's subject and tree position fix its scope: describe its own subject at appropriate detail, describe direct children only by purpose, responsibility, and high-level behavior, and link to the owning descendant for lower-level detail. Document type does not widen that scope. A reference may be exhaustive only about its own subject. Testing mechanisms, fixtures, and harnesses belong at the lowest owning level; higher documents link there.

Classify every in-scope document as a tutorial or reference. A tutorial follows an ordered path to an outcome and introduces only what each step needs. A reference defines a lookup scope and describes current behavior without depending on a teaching sequence. Separate substantial tutorial and reference content; use a clear structural boundary when either part is small.

Before writing a tutorial, privately classify the reader's starting knowledge and each concept as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Establish prerequisites before dependent concepts, increase difficulty gradually, and move unnecessary advanced material to a later tutorial or reference.

Author in this order: locate the document in the tree; set its permitted detail; choose tutorial or reference; for a tutorial, order concepts by prerequisite and difficulty; relocate descendant-owned detail; replace lower-level explanations with links to their owners.

The tier taxonomy: one home per fact

Each fact has one home: the tier whose job it is. Elsewhere, link to that home.

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/, .agents/notes/)	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 (→ subsystems), per-package detail (→ package READMEs), decision rationale (→ Agent Notes), implementation-status annotations
subsystems/	One reference page per subsystem: type shapes, semantics, and the generated Cordis surface	Behavior narration (→ architecture.md)
Agent Notes	Active decision records: the why, what-was-given-up, and verification contract; implemented/ notes describe shipped reality in present tense	Migration plans, acceptance-task checklists, fixture walkthroughs, and spec-speak ("should…") once the decision has shipped; archived notes are frozen history, never current authority
postmortem/	Incident stories — the only tier where war-story narrative belongs	—
cookbook/	Step-by-step how-tos with numbered verify steps	Design rationale (→ the Agent Note each guide links)
user/	Product-facing guides published by the documentation website	Generated reference tables, contributor procedures, decision history
Package README	The per-package contract: config, semantics, limitations, extension points, and Model Experience	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 (→ Agent Notes), gate-by-gate enumerations that drift from package.json scripts
Generated reference: the per-page cordis-surface regions in subsystems/, the Cordis core API + inherited tier, tool-catalog, config-catalog, persistence-catalog, module-graph.md	Exhaustive enumerations regenerated from source, freshness-gated	Hand edits of any kind (regions included)
Skills (.agents/skills/)	Reusable workflows and specialized decision standards	Product and runtime contracts (→ docs or source)

Placement: bugs → postmortems; rationale → Agent Notes; procedures → cookbooks; type shapes → subsystems; package contracts → READMEs; standing orders → root AGENTS.md with a rationale link.

Writing rules

• Document current state, not change history. Avoid "previously/now/no longer", PRs, commits, and stack positions in durable prose; name the live mechanism. Put change stories in commits, PRs, Agent Notes, or postmortems.
• Every non-trivial change includes at least one Agent Note in the same PR. Update the owning note or add one; only mechanical/local edits are exempt (scope).
• One physical line per paragraph (verify-md-wrap): use editor soft-wrap. Code blocks, tables, and list structure keep their formatting; code comments stay under the linter's column limit.
• Fenced ts blocks must compile (doc-typecheck); a pasted type declaration and its original JSDoc use ```ts type-equiv, while a body-stripped public class declaration uses ```ts public-api; register either in the manifest so neither can drift (mechanics).
• The owning subsystems page updates in the same change that reshapes a documented type. verify-type-equiv catches drifted pastes, not never-documented new types; a type is documented on its declaring package group's page (page scoping).
• Bilingual pairs update together: editing either side obligates the counterpart and a re-record in the same change (i18n contract).
• Comments and JSDoc state complete contracts, not reasoning transcripts. Preserve behavior, timing, modality, exceptions, consequences, and non-obvious orientation; delete narration, test walkthroughs, review analysis, and code restatement. Keep the local contract and link its rationale. Use dsh-prose-standard for details.
• Your audience is professional programmers. Prefer concise and straight-forward English over metaphor. Do not overuse words like "gate", "vocabulary", "surface", "seams".

Wordcount Budgets

scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json sets standing-doc ceilings; pnpm run verify-doc-budgets rejects excess or missing files.

When the gate goes red:

1. Relocate content that belongs in another tier; leave a one-line link if needed.
2. Condense content that belongs here but can be shorter.
3. 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 are guardrails, not reduction targets. At or below target, retain at least 5% headroom; above target, freeze the ceiling until relocation or condensation brings the document under target. Lower a ceiling only when the contract still has room, and raise it when content would otherwise be deleted. Targets: root AGENTS.md ≤ 1,600 words; architecture.md ≤ 1,800; subtree AGENTS.md ≤ 600, except packages/AGENTS.md ≤ 650 and this file ≤ 1,250; packages/README.md ≤ 600. Review governs unbudgeted tiers.

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 or war stories: "previously", "now", "no longer", "used to", "renamed", "was moved", PRs, or commits. State the current fact; link an Agent Note or postmortem when needed.
• Implementation-status annotations in prose or diagrams ("implemented!", "future: …"). Status rots; the repo layout and package manifests carry it.
• Hand-restated catalogs, JSDoc, or inventories of tests, packages, and status when source or a generator is authoritative.
• Reasoning transcripts: step-by-step implementation narration, proof of obvious branches, test walkthroughs, or rejected local alternatives. Keep the resulting contract or durable rationale; delete the path used to derive it.
• Rationale repeated beside sibling methods instead of once at the owning seam or helper.
• 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/ Agent Notes: "should", migration plans, acceptance checklists. An implemented Agent Note describes what is, per the implemented-note instructions.

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

Link repository references with relative Markdown paths, never bare filenames or Agent Note numbers. verify-md-links rejects missing targets and dead #fragment anchors (rationale).