AGENTS.md & Skills
Two ways to give Peon AI persistent context without repeating yourself every chat.
AGENTS.md — Project-Wide Rules
Drop an AGENTS.md file into your Eclipse project root. As soon as you select any file in that project, Peon AI picks it up and injects the content as a standing-order context message — so it stays in effect across the conversation, even after the context is compacted.
Use it for project-specific stuff:
- What the project is (one line)
- Key commands — build, test, run
- Important conventions or constraints
- Links to relevant specs or docs
AGENTS-<agent>.md — Agent-Specific Rules
For rules that apply only to a specific agent, create an AGENTS-<agent>.md file alongside your AGENTS.md. Both files are loaded when that agent is active.
| Agent | File | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Peon-Dev | AGENTS-DEV.md | coding conventions, test patterns |
| Peon-Plan | AGENTS-PLAN.md | BDD format, planning style |
| Custom agent "Docs-Assistant" | AGENTS-Docs-Assistant.md | documentation style guide |
The agent name key is derived from the agent's display name:
- Built-in agents: the part after "Peon-", uppercased. "Peon-Dev" → "DEV".
- Custom agents: the display name as-is.
The file name is case-insensitive with fallbacks: AGENTS-DEV.md is tried first, then AGENTS-dev.md, then title case and hyphenated variants.
Deduplication: if both AGENTS.md and AGENTS-<agent>.md contain the same text, it appears only once in the standing orders.
Agent switching: the right file is loaded automatically when you switch agents — no restart needed.
Recommendations
- Read https://www.sri.inf.ethz.ch/publications/gloaguen2026agentsmd
- Keep it short. Every line gets sent on every request.
- Write it yourself
- Note: the LLM doesn't need headlines or any format ...
# my-service
Spring Boot REST API, Java 21.
## Commands
- `mvn clean verify` — build + test
- `mvn spring-boot:run` — run locally
## Conventions
- Constructor injection only, no field injection
- Use the component architecture
- API classes are all in `src/main/java/com/.../api/model`
## Docs
- API spec: [doc/api.md](doc/api.md)The first matching file in the project root is used, checked in this order: AGENTS.md, Agents.md, agents.md, RULES.md, rules.md, AGENT.md, CLAUDE.md, claude.md.
Skills
Skills are reusable instruction sets shared across all your projects. They live in the skills subfolder of your config directory (default ~/.peon/skills); set the base directory in Window > Preferences > AI Peon > Peon Configuration → Config directory. A separate Eclipse project works fine — just point the preference at the folder.
Structure:
my-skills/
├── eclipse-ifile-paths/
│ └── SKILL.md
├── spring-boot-patterns/
│ └── SKILL.md
└── ...At startup, Peon AI reads only the name and description from each skill (~100 tokens per skill). The full content is loaded only when the LLM decides the task matches. Good for knowledge that isn't project-specific: Eclipse API patterns, framework recipes, code-style rules.
Skills follow the agentskills.io spec.
---
name: spring-boot-patterns
description: Spring Boot patterns for REST APIs, JPA, and testing. Use when
working on Spring Boot projects or when the user asks about Spring conventions.
---