Project Context
Polytoken reads an AGENTS.md file from your project root and adds its contents
to what the model sees every turn. This is where standing instructions about the
project live: how to build it, which conventions to follow, what to avoid. You
write it once, and Polytoken loads it for every session in that project.
AGENTS.md is the cross-agent convention other coding tools already use, and
Polytoken reads the same file. An existing one works as written, with no
Polytoken-specific syntax. If a project has no AGENTS.md, Polytoken falls back
to CLAUDE.md, then GEMINI.md, and uses the first one it finds.
Polytoken reads two locations: your global Polytoken config directory first,
then the project root. The global file holds instructions you want in every
project; the project file holds instructions for your current project. To include
another file, reference it with @path/to/file.md, and Polytoken adds that
file’s contents too.
A templated AGENTS.md
Section titled “A templated AGENTS.md”Polytoken uses a plain AGENTS.md as written. It can also render the file as a
template before the model sees it, so the instructions can adapt to the active
model or the current setup. To turn this on, add a front-matter block with
polytoken: true:
---polytoken: true---Build the project with `just build` and run the tests with `just test`.
{% if is_model_variant("claude") %}Prefer small, focused commits.{% endif %}Without polytoken: true, Polytoken uses the file verbatim, braces and all.
With it, the body is a template: the example above adds a line only when a
Claude-family model is active. A template can read the same variables and
functions facets use, which Templating
describes.
Further reading
Section titled “Further reading”- Templating covers the template system and what your instructions can adapt to.
- Template Reference lists every variable and function a template can read.
- Facets cover writing the personas that guide how the model executes your prompts.