alt Hacker NewsThe only difference between CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md is the filename. Do you really need a whole plugin system to support that use case? Feels like this could have been a one line change.
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The plugin system itself was probably already in the making, and they just chose to implement this tiny feature as a plugin to try it out.
As for the only difference being the file name, that's an untested assumption. Up until now, Claude hadn't supported AGENTS.md, and it's a simple application of Hyrum's Law that somebody, somewhere, was taking advantage of that to give one set of instructions to Claude, and a different set of instructions to some other provider. The correct behaviour in the presence of both files is not obvious, either.
Having a kill switch for the change is a perfectly reasonable safety measure in case something goes horribly wrong.
Yes, but at the same time, it’s also a good, simple use case to test a new plugin system. I can totally understand that.
I always point people back to https://grugbrain.dev.
The worst thing about AI is endless complexity slopification.
I'm not sure why they didn't just extend plugins, but having mod support is definitely a plus for everyone.
AGENTS.md seems to simply showcase what mods are capable of.
At $FAANG, ~all changes go through feature flags.
There are processes to make changes outside of feature flags, but they have enough friction that it's easier to just use a feature flag.
This level of paranoia is consistent with the blast radius of changes breaking Claude users.
We've just had a file called `.rules` that is symlink as `AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md`, etc to support the 3 or so common ones used around our projects.
With apologies for not just testing this myself (currently AFK), doesn't it still work to have a CLAUDE.md file containing just `@AGENTS.md`?
> Do you really need a whole plugin system
Vibe-coding gotta vibe-code.
need to, no, but if you put the Ai to task, expect over engineering
Go download the leaked source code from earlier this year, search for all occurrences of the string `CLAUDE.md`, and be horrified.
Welcome to SWE in 2026
One line change? Pffft. That means you're still looking at the code, you're behind the times.
> The only difference between CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md is the filename. Do you really need a whole plugin system to support that use case? Feels like this could have been a one line change.
I don't think this is a reasonable assumption. The document format in CLAUDE.md is whatever Anthropic specifies, where AGENTS.md is a common ground format that is expected to be supported by any agent, be it from Anthropic or not.
You might argue that differences are small or negligible, but that is just an expectation.
Don't you run bizantine ralph loops on remote environments with codex security checks, coupled with jev, grok, open router and a fully independent openclaw (on a maxed out mac mini inside a caveau in an undisclosed location, with open telegram) to change constants? You're going to be left behind.