Skip to main content

​
One file: AGENTS.md

Write what a new engineer needs on day one: build and test commands, conventions, where things live, how work is delivered, what to avoid. Plain markdown. Humboldt reads it whole and never changes it on its own. CLAUDE.md and README.md at the same level are read too. When more than one is present, AGENTS.md has the last word.

​
Instructions for one folder

Put an AGENTS.md inside the folder. Humboldt reads it the first time it reads or edits a file in that folder or beneath it.
Both files apply once read; the folder’s file is read last. After a compaction, a folder’s file comes back with the next read there.

​
Linking your documentation

Keep AGENTS.md as the entry point and name your documents in it: a design document, standards, test data, the delivery process. Humboldt reads a named file when the work calls for it.
A folder of markdown files on its own, such as agents/*.md or rules/*.md, is not read. Name the files in AGENTS.md, or put the folder-specific ones in that folder’s AGENTS.md.

​
Let Humboldt write it

Humboldt reads the repository and drafts the file. Review it, change what you want, commit it. It applies from the next session.

​
Where Humboldt starts

Humboldt reads instruction files from the directory you start hum in, and every parent up to the repository root. Start hum at the root to have the root file apply everywhere. Nothing above the repository root, or in your home directory, is read.

​
MCP servers

Tool servers are configured in ~/.hum/config.toml, separately from instructions. See MCP servers.