Developer releases free AGENTS.md template to keep AI coding tools from breaking projects

On November 1, 2026, a developer published an article on DEV Community introducing a free AGENTS.md rules template for AI coding tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot and Windsurf. The code lives in the vibe-coding-rules-starter repository and is released under the MIT license. The article lists problems its author says are familiar to people who build with these tools: asking for a single small fix only to have the agent "tidy up" four other files along the way; an API key hard-coded into a component, or tucked behind a NEXT_PUBLIC_ prefix where every visitor can read it; a new API route that works for every user, including the ones who should never see that record; the same broken fix attempted five times, each pass making things slightly worse; and tests "fixed" by skipping them. The author argues that none of this means the model is stupid. Rather, the model is doing exactly what was asked, with no sense of what the developer considers off-limits. The proposed remedy is cheap: hand the agent a short, clear set of house rules in an AGENTS.md file. The template itself requires an agent to state which rule it followed whenever instructions conflict, and explicitly forbids practices such as hard-coding API keys and "fixing" tests by skipping them. This is the only available report on the subject so far. It covers the template's purpose and the problems it targets, but it does not enumerate the full rule set, and there is no follow-up coverage to date.