Skip to contents

List agent instruction files

Source: R/agent_instructions.R
list_agent_instructions.Rd

Shows the instruction files your AI coding assistants read: the Markdown files where you tell an agent how you like to work (CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, AGENTS.md for Codex, Posit Assistant and others). Instructions can apply to every project on the computer ("user", in your home folder) or to one project ("project", in the working directory).

Usage

list_agent_instructions(scope = c("user", "project"))

Arguments

scope

Where to look: "user" (your home folder), "project" (the working directory), or both, the default.

Value

Invisibly, a tibble with one row per file, in the order shown, and columns:

  • scope: "user" or "project".

  • agent: the name edit_agent_instructions() takes for the file: "claude", "codex", "posit" or "agents".

  • read_by: the agents that read the file.

  • path: the full path to the file.

  • exists: whether the file exists.

  • lines: how many lines the file has, or NA when it does not exist.

Details

The main file for each agent is always listed, marked "not found" when it does not exist yet, so you can see where it would go:

  • User: ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (Claude Code), ~/.codex/AGENTS.md (Codex) and ~/.posit/assistant/AGENTS.md (Posit Assistant). Only agents installed on this computer are listed, judged by whether their folder (~/.claude, ~/.codex, ~/.posit) exists.

  • Project: AGENTS.md, read by Codex and Posit Assistant, and by Claude Code when the project has no CLAUDE.md; and CLAUDE.md, read by Claude Code.

Less common files are listed only when they exist: ~/.codex/AGENTS.override.md, .claude/CLAUDE.md and CLAUDE.local.md.

If a project has both an AGENTS.md and a CLAUDE.md, Claude Code reads only the CLAUDE.md, and a note says so. A CLAUDE.md that contains the line @AGENTS.md pulls the AGENTS.md in, so there is no note.

Nothing is created or changed. Use edit_agent_instructions() to open a file.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
list_agent_instructions()
list_agent_instructions(scope = "user")
} # }