AGENTS.md Specification
The open standard for guiding AI coding agents, now governed by the Agentic AI Foundation.
Documentation
2 minute read
Welcome to the AI Config documentation. This section covers standards for sharing AI agents and skills, as well as the skills available in this collection.
Standards for Sharing Agents and Skills
The AI ecosystem has several emerging standards for describing and sharing agents, skills, and context. In December 2025, the Linux Foundation announced the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) to govern several of these standards.
Agent Standards
| Standard | Purpose | Format | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| AGENTS.md | Project-specific guidance for AI coding agents | Markdown | AAIF |
| Agent Manifest (ADS) | Describes autonomous AI agents capabilities, authentication, and execution | manifest.json | agent-manifest.org |
| Open Agent Specification | Framework-agnostic declarative agent specification | YAML/JSON | Oracle Blog |
| OASF | Open Agentic Schema Framework for agent interoperability | JSON Schema | AGNTCY |
Skill Standards
| Standard | Purpose | Format | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent Skills (SKILL.md) | Human-readable skill instructions for AI assistants | Markdown + YAML | agentskills.io |
| Skill Manifest | Bot skills with endpoints, activities, and I/O schemas | skills-manifest.json | Microsoft Bot Framework |
| GPT Actions | API integration for ChatGPT custom GPTs | OpenAPI 3.1.0 | OpenAI Platform |
Context & Communication Protocols
| Standard | Purpose | Format | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCP | Model Context Protocol for agent-to-tool communication | JSON-RPC | modelcontextprotocol.io |
| llms.txt | Website content structured for LLM consumption | Markdown | llmstxt.org |
Knowledge Standards
Standards for sharing knowledge, data, and models between AI systems and agents.
| Standard | Purpose | Format | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| IEEE 3404-2025 | Standard for data and model sharing between federated machine learning systems | Specification | IEEE |
| A2A Protocol | Agent-to-Agent protocol for agent discovery and knowledge exchange | JSON | Google A2A |
| ISO/IEC 22989 | AI concepts and terminology standard | ISO Standard | ISO |
| ISO/IEC 42001 | AI management system requirements | ISO Standard | ISO |
| RAG Patterns | Retrieval-Augmented Generation for knowledge integration | De facto practices | Various implementations |
Summary
- AGENTS.md - OpenAI standard adopted by 60,000+ projects; provides project-specific agent guidance
- Agent Skills / SKILL.md - Anthropic standard adopted by Microsoft, OpenAI, Atlassian, Figma, Cursor, GitHub
- MCP - De facto standard for agent-to-tool communication with 97M+ monthly SDK downloads
- GPT Actions - OpenAI’s OpenAPI-based format for ChatGPT integrations
- llms.txt - Emerging standard for making website content LLM-friendly
Note: This documentation was created with AI assistance. Some content may be experimental or untested. Always verify information before use in production environments.
Agent Ignore Files
The fragmented landscape of AI agent ignore files and the push for standardization.
Skills
A collection of AI-generated agent skills for various tasks including documentation, licensing, and academic writing.
AI-Generated Skills
Understanding what AI-generated skills are, their benefits, limitations, and how to use them responsibly.
Progressive Disclosure for Skills
How the SKILL.md specification uses progressive disclosure to optimize context window usage.
AI Limitations and Best Practices
Understanding AI limitations and how to use AI-generated content responsibly.