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Project instructions record development conventions, verification commands, and operational limits. Step Code includes discovered instructions in the context it uses to work on the project.

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Create project instructions

  1. Create AGENTS.md at the project root, or update the existing file without replacing unrelated instructions.
  2. Add rules appropriate for the repository. For example:
  1. Run /reload in Step Code or restart to load the changes.
You can also run /init to generate instructions from the project. Review its commands, paths, and constraints before saving. To check discovery, ask the model which project instructions apply to a task and compare its references with the file.

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Discovery and precedence

In each directory, Step Code selects the first existing file in this order:
  1. AGENTS.override.md
  2. AGENTS.md
  3. CLAUDE.md
Discovery walks up to the filesystem root. Keep shared team rules in project files and personal preferences in the global file. --no-context-files disables automatic discovery; see The step command.

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Reuse existing instructions

Existing CLAUDE.md files can remain in place. Check that their tool names, commands, paths, and model requirements apply to Step Code. See Migrating from other tools for importing other resources. Instructions describe how to work. Configure Permissions and safety separately to control tool approval and project resource loading. For reusable tasks, see Agent Skills. Role definitions belong in Agents and subagents.