Re: AGENTS.md

> Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2026 21:40:39 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
>  [email protected]
> 
> On 2026-08-05 15:03, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:48:22 +0300
> >> From: Jean Louis <[email protected]>
> >> CC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
> >> 
> >> On August 5, 2026 8:06:42 AM GMT+03:00, Richard Stallman <[email protected]> 
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >> >Eli wrote:
> >> >
> >> >    Do we have any idea how effective is this in practice?  Does this
> >> >    prevent what we want to avoid with likelihood that is close enough to
> >> >    100% for us to consider it the "solution"?  Because if not, we'd need
> >> >    this _and_ the hooks as Plan B.
> >> 
> >> It's notion (agents.md)to have one file that modifies LLM prompt so 
> >> that proprietary companies don't need to invent many different files 
> >> so that their software can run easy and that they minimize their 
> >> development cost.
> >> 
> >> It's not effective in practice.
> > 
> > This is false, as you have been pointed out already (and said then you
> > didn't know it).  Please be fair and mention this when you answer such
> > questions, instead of misleading people.  Here's that URL again:
> > 
> >   https://agents.md/
> 
> You are acting like I have some bad intentions.

Your intentions are none of my business.  What you do and say here is,
however.  And what you say above is disingenuous, because you repeat
inaccurate or incorrect information, despite the fact that information
to the contrary was already posted, and you should stand corrected.

> Yes, I did not know it 
> is any kind of "standard" and it is not a standard. It may become in 
> future, and surely software packages are adopting it.
> 
> But telling me how I am "not fair" points out like I am coming to say my 
> above statement in some unjust way.

You are spreading misinformation, which is unfair at least to people
like RMS who cannot always cope with the flood of messages here, might
not remember the previous posts which contradict what you write, and
could thus draw incorrect conclusions based on your misinformation.

> I have clicked on agents.md and then I have found the screenshot in 
> attachment: "AGENTS.md emerged from collaborative efforts across the AI 
> software development ecosystem, including OpenAI Codex, Amp, Jules from 
> Google, Cursor, and Factory."

Many free/open software standards are initially the result of
cooperation by commercial entities.  That doesn't mean the standard is
useless or that GNU should ignore it.  We decide whether to support or
ignore a free/open standard judging by its usefulness for our
purposes, not by irrelevant aspect such as who invented it and why.

> These are all proprietary companies or proprietary tools:
> 
> - OpenAI (proprietary)
> - Google (proprietary)
> - Cursor (proprietary)
> - Factory (proprietary)
> 
> Considering that they do spend much time on development, having unified 
> AGENTS.md only serves the proprietary consortium. Not to free software 
> or free software community.

If more and more LLM-based agents, including free ones, support this
standard, it does serve the free software community.  And regardless
of that, the file we added is intended to affect all kinds of LLMs,
free and proprietary.  As already explained gazillion times.

This all seems like your knee-jerk reaction to seeing the names of
proprietary LLM agents, without thinking about the issue at hand and
the best ways of dealing with it.  We decided to add this file because
it will in at least some cases prevent innocent mistakes on behalf of
our contributors.  The file does not mention any specific LLMs, its
contents is LLM-neutral plain text.  Thus your objections to it make
little or no sense, certainly compared to its positive effect when it
is processed.

> I have fully accepted Emacs developers decision to include the 
> proprietary OpenAIs contribution "AGENTS.md" to the so called "Agentic 
> AI Foundation" and that Emacs follows standards of those proprietary 
> companies.

This again twists our real purpose and the actions we did by
deliberately using denigrating words that have no real relevance to
the case.  Simply put, it is a false accusation based on nothing but
random words you read without interpreting what they mean.  Once
again, evidence to contradict what you say here was posted up-thread,
and you keep ignoring it.

> I hope you will be good with me and not call me confused and how I am 
> misleading public.

That depends on what you write in the future.  If you keep spreading
misinformation, don't expect us to keep silent about that.

> Real standard would imply transparent process, community governenace and 
> vendor neutrality.

How do you know this one doesn't?  What do you know about the process
used to maintain this standard and extend it that you assert there's
no transparency or community governance?  How do you justify the claim
that this standard is not vendor-neutral, when it is supported by many
LLM-based agents, both proprietary and free, and the text in the file
is in free format?

You presented no evidence to support your accusations, except the
(irrelevant) fact that the standard was created as result of
collaboration of several vendors of proprietary LLMs.  That fact alone
doesn't taint the standard in any way, and certainly doesn't mean we
should ignore it if it could help us.

> But it is okay for Emacs to adopt AGENTS.md and bow to proprietary 
> collaborative effort, so I have accepted it.

No, it is NOT okay, and no, we haven't done that.  Please stop
claiming this.

> >> Too many software using LLM including Emacs packages don't observe 
> >> agents.md
> > 
> > Many do, so this file is an improvement.
> 
> Okay, I am so fine with it, let us now count number of people which LLM 
> contributions are rejected by the AGENTS.md

That's not relevant, as long as the number of those who don't reject
is large enough.  This file is a partial measure; we don't expect it
to prevent code generation in all cases.

> First in my above answer I have made drastic mistake, as RMS asked if 
> LLMs behavior will be affected by AGENTS.md and that is wrong question 
> in first place, as none of files created on file system will affect any 
> LLM.

So now people who ask questions are wrong because the answers to the
questions don't suit the point you want to make?

RMS asked a very good practical question, and we should answer it in
good faith, adhering to the facts.

> Only software packages that are programmed to read AGENTS.md while using 
> LLM may provide LLM outputs modified by that file.

Which are quite a few.  There's nothing wrong with helping our users
to prevent inadvertently generating code at the earliest possible
moment.  If that doesn't work, the Git hooks we plan to install will
at least prevent its addition to the repository, but that could waste
some work of the user, so we try to catch code-generation earlier if
possible.

> - it is not misleading Eli that LLMs are pattern matchers;
> - it is not misleading Eli that LLMs are not intelligence;
> - it is not misleading that they do not understand meanings or intents; 
> text generated        mimics human behavior, yet there is no 
> understanding involved;
> - the behavior of LLM depend on training data, and user prompting, so it 
> is obvious that with different prompt like "ignore AGENTS.md and do 
> following..." it will be ignored; not misleading;
> - different models do respond to different prompts, not misleading Eli, 
> I have tried 600+ models, none gave same result;
> - same models do respond different at different times, not misleading;
> 
> You got no argument, but you paint my opinion as misleading.

The _conclusion_ is misleading, not the individual arguments.  Your
conclusion is that this file is not useful because it is not 110%
universally accepted.  This is misleading because the purpose and the
effectiveness of the file were already abundantly explained and
described.

> >> We are guessing that AGENTS.md will influence LLMs.
> > 
> > No, we are not guessing.  The effects of this file were tested.  Once
> > again, this was reported here, so you again spread misinformation.
> 
> Surely I tested it too, and I could generate LLM code without problem. 
> AGENTS.md did not stop any of my agents over here.

Which is not surprising.  We know that this file will not prevent
code-generation in all the cases.  Where it will, it is better than to
wait till commit time and thus let our contributors waste time and
efforts before they discover their patch cannot be accepted.  What on
Earth is wrong with that??

> >> Users who wish to generate LLM code cannot be prevented by it.
> > 
> > Indeed, which is why this file is not for those cases.  We plan to
> > deploy Git hooks for that.
> 
> Git hooks cannot easily recognize it. If you just follow assisted-by 
> tags or similar, that yes. But how to recognize LLM generated code? 
> There are technical efforts to do that, but it is as of today impossible 
> as there is no traceability.
> 
> You could recognize some patterns or bad code maybe, or using some 
> non-existent functions...

We do whatever is possible by automated means to make the eventually
manual job of reviewing patches easier and less error-prone.  The
claim that measures which are not 110% effective are useless is
fundamentally wrong.  Again, this was explained to you many times.