AGENTS.md vs CLAUDE.md: Where Agent Context Actually Lives
AGENTS.md vs CLAUDE.md: Where Agent Context Actually Lives If you have opened three different repos this month and found three different context files (AGENTS.md in one, CLAUDE.md in another, both in a third, out of sync), you are not imagining the mess. AGENTS.md is now an open, vendor neutral standard that most major coding agents read, but CLAUDE.md has not gone away, and knowing which file…
AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md are context files used by coding agents, but they serve different purposes and have different standards. AGENTS.md is a vendor-neutral standard that most major coding agents read, while CLAUDE.md is specific to Anthropic's Claude Code and not confirmed to be read natively by Claude Code. AGENTS.md is now an open standard maintained by the Linux Foundation, while CLAUDE.md has not gone away.
Tools that support AGENTS.md include GitHub Copilot coding agent, Cursor, Amp Factory, RooCode, Zed, and Warp. The recommended migration is to rename CLAUDE.md to AGENTS.md and create a symlink, so legacy tools that only look for the old filename will still work. AGENTS.md should contain operational instructions, not aspirational goals, and should be short and specific. The file is used to set up the project, test it, build it, and define conventions.
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