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Load global AGENTS.md into native agent system prompt#56757

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rtfeldman merged 4 commits into
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AI-231/global-agents-md
May 14, 2026
Merged

Load global AGENTS.md into native agent system prompt#56757
rtfeldman merged 4 commits into
mainfrom
AI-231/global-agents-md

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@rtfeldman

@rtfeldman rtfeldman commented May 14, 2026 •
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Watches a user-global AGENTS.md file alongside settings.json (at ~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md on macOS/Linux, %APPDATA%\Zed\AGENTS.md on Windows) and includes its trimmed contents in the native agent's system prompt.

This matches the pattern used by Codex (CODEX_HOME/AGENTS.md, defaulting to ~/.codex/AGENTS.md) and OpenCode (~/.config/opencode/AGENTS.md): personal instructions live next to other app config and apply across every project the user opens.

Behavior

  • Native Zed agent only. Not passed to ACP / external agents.
  • Reads the local config dir, so SSH-remoted projects still get the local user's personal AGENTS.md (project rules continue to come from the remote workspace).
  • Missing, empty, or whitespace-only files are silently treated as no AGENTS.md.
  • Read errors surface through the same notification UI as settings errors, with a stable notification ID that's dismissed once the file becomes readable again.
  • The file is read in full, matching how existing project rules / repo AGENTS.md files are loaded today.

System prompt rendering

In the system prompt, the user-global AGENTS.md appears as ### Personal AGENTS.md immediately before ### Project Rules, so the model sees personal defaults first and project guidance later (project rules take precedence on conflicts).

Tests

  • user_agents_md watcher: initial load, empty/whitespace ignored, reacts to file edits.
  • SystemPromptTemplate: renders personal AGENTS.md before project rules; omits the section when no user AGENTS.md is present.

Closes AI-231

Release Notes:

  • Added support for a global AGENTS.md file alongside settings.json, which is included in all projects' system prompts in the Zed Agent

@rtfeldman
Load ~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md into native agent system prompt
21a3529 
Watches a user-global AGENTS.md alongside settings.json and includes its trimmed contents in the native agent's system prompt, rendered before project-level rules so per-project guidance can override personal defaults.

Missing, empty, or whitespace-only files are treated as no AGENTS.md. Read errors surface through the same notification UI as settings errors.
@rtfeldman rtfeldman self-assigned this May 14, 2026
@cla-bot cla-bot Bot added the cla-signed The user has signed the Contributor License Agreement label May 14, 2026
@zed-community-bot zed-community-bot Bot added the staff Pull requests authored by a current member of Zed staff label May 14, 2026
rtfeldman added 3 commits May 14, 2026 10:43
@rtfeldman
Make UserAgentsMd an enum
a05116b 
Collapses the previous struct (Option<content>, Option<error>) into a three-variant enum so that loaded/empty/error states are mutually exclusive, and removes the redundant UserAgentsMdStatus type since the enum now serves both as in-memory state and as the value passed to the on-change callback.
@rtfeldman
Collapse UserAgentsMd into a single wrapper global
a8efb07 
Matches the SettingsStore pattern: one wrapper struct (UserAgentsMd) holds the data plus a _watcher: Task<()> field, and the enum (now UserAgentsMdState) describes only the data variants. The watcher's lifetime is tied to the data it produces, so replacing the global cancels the watcher.
@rtfeldman
Pass user_agents_md to SystemPromptTemplate in eval helpers
cec1be9
@rtfeldman rtfeldman marked this pull request as ready for review May 14, 2026 14:54
@rtfeldman rtfeldman enabled auto-merge May 14, 2026 14:54
@cole-miller cole-miller self-requested a review May 14, 2026 14:56
@rtfeldman rtfeldman added this pull request to the merge queue May 14, 2026
Merged via the queue into main with commit 29ca37f May 14, 2026
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@rtfeldman rtfeldman deleted the AI-231/global-agents-md branch May 14, 2026 15:05
@failable

failable commented May 22, 2026

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Rule library is removed. Where can I find my existing rules?

@xybr-dev

xybr-dev commented May 22, 2026

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Rule library is removed. Where can I find my existing rules?

This! I had custom adjustments in the commit generation prompt which was included by Zed. Where am I going to tweak it now that the rules library has been removed?

@rtfeldman

rtfeldman commented May 22, 2026 •
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I had custom adjustments in the commit generation prompt which was included by Zed. Where am I going to tweak it now that the rules library has been removed?

@xybr-dev Check in ~/.config/zed/AGENTS.md (or whatever directory your Zed settings.json file is in - the global AGENTS.md will be there). If you had that prompt changed, we migrated it to that AGENTS.md file. Also if you had any Default Rules, they should have been added to that AGENTS.md file too.

Rule library is removed. Where can I find my existing rules?

@failable Besides the Default Rules (see my response earlier in this comment), if you had any non-default Rules, those should be Skills now (in ~/.agents/skills/).

Let me know if you don't find them in those places!

@tredondo tredondo mentioned this pull request May 26, 2026
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