Agentfile Hygiene Rubric

REFERENCE MODE: This skill provides reference material. Load the rubric on-demand when auditing, trimming, or gating an agentfile.

An agentfile is an always-on instruction file an AI coding assistant loads into context every session — CLAUDE.md (Claude Code) and AGENTS.md (OpenAI / OpenCode spec). Because the file is always-on, every line carries a fixed per-session token cost and competes for the context window; agentfiles drift upward over time as rules accrue. This skill carries the objective, domain-invariant rubric for deciding which sections earn that always-on cost.

The rubric is the single normative source of truth consumed by BOTH halves of the agentfile-hygiene capability:

• the cognitive sweep plan-marshall:recipe-agentfile-hygiene, which classifies each section and emits one remediation deliverable per offending section; and
• the deterministic pm-plugin-development:plugin-doctor backstop rules agentfile-line-count-over-budget and agentfile-directory-tree-present.

Consumers reference the rubric — they MUST NOT restate its content — so the LLM recipe and the deterministic rules stay in sync by construction.

Enforcement

Execution mode: Reference library; load the rubric standard on-demand.

Prohibited actions:

• Do not restate or duplicate the rubric in a consuming skill, rule, or doc — reference standards/rubric.md instead.
• Do not add project-specific examples, path literals, or agentfile content to the rubric — it is domain-invariant and ships to consumer repos verbatim.

Constraints:

• standards/rubric.md is the single normative source for every enforcement-critical hygiene criterion.
• The rubric is agentfile-type-agnostic: it applies to CLAUDE.md (every nesting level) and AGENTS.md alike.

Rubric

Read: standards/rubric.md

The rubric covers: the empirical grounding for agentfile hygiene; the three section classifications (always-on-justified | demotable-to-skill | inert/deletable) with concrete criteria; the always-on line budget (default 200 lines, with the per-consumer budget note); and the directory-tree anti-pattern.

Related Skills

• plan-marshall:recipe-agentfile-hygiene — cognitive sweep that consumes this rubric and emits remediation deliverables
• pm-plugin-development:plugin-doctor — deterministic backstop rules that embody the rubric's line-budget and directory-tree criteria
• plan-marshall:tools-sync-agents-file — distinct concern: creates/updates AGENTS.md per the OpenAI spec (this skill audits and trims existing agentfiles)