Thread

Claude Code reads AGENTS.md only when telemetry is on [fixed]

486 points · 284 comments · pszypowicz

mpoteat · 1790168190 · focus · HN ↗
Sorry folks, this is a rollout artifact, we needed a way to turn this off remotely via feature flags if it broke something, and with telemetry off you don't get those. It's already been fixed as part of v2.1.281 releasing today.
The mod is source available here: <a href="https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/tree/main/mods/agents-md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/tree/main/mods/age...
Apologies again folks, this was a fully human error on my part - I should've found a better way to launch with a kill-switch.
1. mpoteat · 1790168466 · focus · HN ↗
  The AGENTS.md support was implemented via our new extensibility system for CC, called Mods, which is launching soon-ish. A mod is a plugin with a new type of hook, which we call a function hook.
  If folks play around with it, I would love feedback on the relevant issue: <a href="https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/91870" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/91870
  Mods allow quite a bit more customizability and control. I really believe in the idea.
  1. amluto · 1790173980 · focus · HN ↗
    I skimmed a couple pages of the docs at:
    <a href="https://github.com/user-attachments/files/31802150/EXTERNAL.Function.Hooks.Core.Architecture.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/user-attachments/files/31802150/EXTERNAL....
    Might I gently suggest that you have a model at least as capable as Opus 5.5 translate that from Claudish to English? Or, even better, have an actual human work on the docs a bit? As it stands, they are fairly egregious, and they seem to devote at least as much space to little AI-generated quips that convey no meaning than to actually explaining what’s going on.
    Also, maybe a human should decide whether these are “function” hooks or “module” hooks. All of this marketing calls them “function” hooks, but the json config seems entirely unaware of this.
    (Has anyone else noticed that half the sentences in Claudish aren’t merely weird: they are noun phrases and not sentences at all? I’m pretty sure that any decent pre-LLM NLP-based grammar checker would correctly flag half the sentences in Claudish. Also, whatever variant of Claude wrote this thing can’t even capitalize around semicolons consistently with itself, let alone consistently with how English has been written for at least a century.)
    edit: Fixed the link. Thanks, kaszanka.
    mpoteat · 1790176453 · focus · HN ↗
    Ouch! Much of this verbiage was dictated by me personally; I just have a fairly distinct register some might consider inscrutable. My English teachers in grade school always said the same :)
    Rest assured I'll inject a bit less soul into the official docs once Mods are launched; re your feedback on the JSON key, what would you recommend?
    massagedpelican · 1790181270 · focus · HN ↗
    Out of curiosity, I ran the PDF through pangram and it seemed to flag nearly the entire thing as AI. I recognize these aren't perfect detectors, but they can give signals if nothing else. Perhaps it needs more soul injected!
    <a href="https://www.pangram.com/history/93f9ec71-f7b3-4680-86b1-ff129549cb16?ucc=VlhV1svqmKk" rel="nofollow">https://www.pangram.com/history/93f9ec71-f7b3-4680-86b1-ff12...
    KurtMueller · 1790185031 · focus · HN ↗
    Perhaps these "ai detectors" are snake oil
    sebmellen · 1790186584 · focus · HN ↗
    There’s definitely a snake oil component, but Pangram is unbelievably accurate. Creepily so in my opinion
    computomatic · 1790202896 · focus · HN ↗
    How do you evaluate that?
    sebmellen · 1790216297 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, I've tried to get around it for our corporate SEO blogging strategy, and I've found that it's just not possible to do it (even with really crazy techniques where you have different models combined to produce the output, or you change your prompting style massively). The minute I take the same article that the LLM gave me and I rewrite it in my own voice (meaning just take the information and topics, but rewrite it from scratch), the post works immediately and passes as 100% human on Pangram.
    The only thing that gets around that is StealthGPT, but it mangles your intent in the output so badly that it's easier to just write the thing yourself.
    karagenit · 1790189007 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, this doc is really interesting. It has some absolutely claude-fried lines like:
    > A hook is Koa-style middleware: it reifies an endomorphic continuation
    > Five forms, each on tool.call;
    But on the other hand uses distinctly human phrases like “one may” and “etc./e.g.” that I rarely see LLMs use. Not sure what to think.
    echoangle · 1790190519 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe Claude is RLHFd primarily on texts by mpoteat and that’s why it talks this way
    thinkingemote · 1790194540 · focus · HN ↗
    I know it's a joke but if you look at many of the key AI researchers papers (written pre-LLM mass adoption) you can see some similarities with how LLMs structure their output.
    I'd love to do some stylometry on this...
    bmitc · 1790210603 · focus · HN ↗
    I have found that Opus 5 and Fable love bringing up category theory at the drop of a hat.

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