AGENTS.md in Open Source Assistants

AGENTS.md in Open Source Assistants | Generated by AI

Home 2026.04

Question: What is equivalent to CLAUDE.md in OpenCode (or open-source assistants)?

Answer: In the open-source and agentic IDE landscape of 2026, the equivalent to CLAUDE.md is AGENTS.md.

While Anthropic popularized the concept with CLAUDE.md, the open-source community and several “open” alternatives (like OpenCode, Continue, and Aider) have coalesced around AGENTS.md as the vendor-neutral standard for global and project-specific instructions.

1. The Standard: `AGENTS.md`

This file serves as the “source of truth” for any AI agent interacting with your codebase. Most open-source tools now support a hierarchical discovery process similar to how .gitignore works:

Global Rules: Located at ~/.config/agents/AGENTS.md (or similar home directory paths). These rules apply to every project you open.
Project Rules: Located in the project root (./AGENTS.md). These override global rules for that specific repo.
Scoped Rules: Some tools (like OpenCode) allow AGENTS.md files in subdirectories to provide context for specific modules (e.g., frontend vs. backend).

2. Tool-Specific Equivalents

If you are using specific open-source or popular alternatives to Claude Code, here is where they look for their “Global Rules”:

Tool	Primary Config File	Support for `AGENTS.md`?
OpenCode	`OPENCODE.md` or `.opencode/rules.md`	Yes (Native fallback)
Continue	`.continue/config.json` (System Prompt)	via custom context providers
Aider	`.aider.conf.yml` or `.aider.instructions.md`	Yes
Cursor	`.cursor/rules/*.mdc`	Partial (reads as reference)
Cline / Roo Code	`.clinerules`	Yes

3. What to Include in Your “Global Rules”

Regardless of the filename, your equivalent file should follow the same Markdown structure to be effective:

Style & Conventions: (e.g., “Always use Functional Components,” “Prefer TypeScript over JS.”)
Tech Stack: Specific versions of libraries to avoid the AI guessing outdated APIs.
Forbidden Patterns: (e.g., “Never use any,” “Do not use Barrel exports.”)
Workflow Hooks: Build and test commands (e.g., ## Commands - Test: npm test).

4. Why Use `AGENTS.md`?

Using the AGENTS.md standard in OpenCode allows you to remain LLM-agnostic. If you switch your backend from Claude to GPT-5 or a local Llama 4 model, the agent will still read the same ruleset without you having to rename files or update system prompts manually in a UI.

References:

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