agent-standards

Expert Instruction

Overview

Foundational meta-skill that defines behavioral and cognitive standards for senior AI engineering agents. Establishes the reasoning pipeline, memory architecture, and context engineering practices that enable autonomous, long-horizon task execution with verifiable outcomes.

When to use: Configuring agent reasoning, managing context windows, establishing verification protocols, orchestrating multi-agent workflows, optimizing token usage.

When NOT to use: Domain-specific coding tasks (use specialized skills), UI/UX design, database schema work.

Quick Reference

Pattern	Approach	Key Points
Perception	Analyze terminal output, codebase, traces	High-fidelity input ingestion
Hypothesis	Generate multiple solution paths	Evaluate before committing
Simulation	Reason through change consequences	Predict side effects
Action	Precise tool execution	Atomic, testable commits
Criticism	Self-audit output	Check for bugs and style violations
Context discovery	Map framework versions and patterns	Always discover before implementing
Dependency audit	Check existing tools before adding new ones	Avoid unnecessary dependencies
Verifiable planning	Define Definition of Done	Test pass, build success, or user approval
Interactive alignment	Ask the user for ambiguous requirements	Confirm critical architectural decisions
Atomic implementation	Apply changes in logical, testable units	Each commit should be independently verifiable
Audit and cleanup	Run linter, remove debug artifacts	No temporary code in final output
Selective reading	Use offset and limit parameters	Avoid reading entire large files
Symbol search	Use grep/rg to find definitions	Do not read entire directories
Few-shot anchoring	Provide canonical examples	More effective than long rule lists
Memory tiering	Short-term, mid-term, long-term	Match persistence to information lifetime
Context packing	Bundle related files	Structured markdown artifacts
Noise reduction	Exclude node_modules, dist, binary artifacts	Maximize signal-to-noise ratio in context
Semantic summarization	Condense long logs into actionable facts	Single-sentence failure descriptions
Cognitive load pruning	Remove irrelevant history from active context	Free tokens for current task reasoning

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Correct Pattern
Failing silently when a tool call or build step errors	Always report status and errors explicitly to the user
Inventing APIs or methods that do not exist	Search documentation or use web search to verify API signatures before using them
Writing verbose explanations instead of showing code	Prioritize code-first communication; explain only when asked
Ignoring surrounding code style and conventions	Mimic the existing codebase patterns, naming, and formatting
Hardcoding secrets or API keys in source files	Use environment variables and .env file mapping
Reading entire directories to find a single symbol	Use grep or rg to locate definitions, then read only relevant sections
Skipping verification after implementation	Every task must have a verification signal before marking complete
Storing sensitive data in memory or context files	Run a secret scrub before persisting any memory vector
Loading full file contents into context unnecessarily	Use partial reads with offset and limit for large files
Including duplicate information from multiple sources	Deduplicate context to preserve token budget

Delegation

• Explore a codebase to map framework versions and active patterns: Use Explore agent
• Execute a complex multi-step implementation with atomic commits: Use Task agent
• Plan architecture for a long-horizon feature with dependency analysis: Use Plan agent

References

• Cognitive architecture, reasoning stack, multi-agent orchestration, and cognitive load management
• Tiered memory systems, short-term to long-term persistence, and shared memory
• Agent communication protocols including MCP, A2A, and ACP standards
• Context engineering, token optimization, information hierarchy, and structured packing