AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md Are Concessions to Proprietary Services, Not Defenses Against Them

On 2026-08-03 18:38, Sean Whitton wrote:
> Lynn Winebarger [03/Aug 11:10am -04] wrote:
>> What about users who are maintaining a private version of Emacs for 
>> use
>> internal to an organization?
> 
> They can delete the file.

The term "AGENTS" is created by Anthropic to support their proprietary 
tooling. CLAUDE.md as well.  Never used Claude and I don't run Service 
as a Software Substitute. I do run LLMs locally on my computer, those 
that are not proprietary.

Placing such files in the GNU project gives namespace and advertising to 
service as a software substitute. Who Does That Server Really Serve? - 
GNU Project - Free Software Foundation:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html

Points to observe:

- placing such files only attracts more LLM, not less, even if file is 
negative prompt;
- there is absolute no guarantee that such files would be accepted;
- those who think it is useful, they are basically making it useful only 
for some of the LLM tools, mostly proprietary;
- it invites and gives attention to service as a software substitute;
- there is no general consensus in the world that LLM software need to 
observe neither AGENTS.md nor CLAUDE.md
- thus there is no guarantee at all, just the negative effect
- it is not in the spirit of GNU project and free software to give 
signals to use non-free software;

Question is ethical: placing such files into GNU project like Emacs 
would make it compatible to and usable with proprietary LLM services 
like Claude, ChatGPT, etc. This makes Emacs participate in their 
non-free environments, and also gives away control to those companies on 
how project is interacted with.

Even if AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md has negative prompt, it is handshake with 
the proprietary software and service as a software substitute.

It legitimizes the proprietary software in free software Emacs. It makes 
no sense.

The GNU article asks: "If you had the free software, the data, and the 
computer power, would you still use someone else's computer to do that 
job?"

Apply that logic here: If you didn't have proprietary LLMs (Claude, 
ChatGPT, etc.), would you ever need an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md file? The 
answer is no. These files exist only because proprietary services exist.

The GNU Project does not need to make itself more convenient for them.

-- 
Jean Louis