Responding to an essay by Shawn Gottesdiener, Theo Browne compares agent instructions to technical debtTechnical debt is future work created by a technical choice that makes later changes harder.: they can shape every future task, yet their failures may be quiet and hard to trace.
He discusses how system prompts, tools, plugins and project instruction filesAn agent plugin extends an AI agent with packaged tools, integrations, skills, or interfaces that are not part of the agent's base capability. influence agent behavior, and says model upgrades can change the effect of instructions that previously worked.
Using an outdated AGENTS.md in his own project as an example, Browne recommends reviewing project instructions, keeping concrete useful context and removing unnecessary steering. His comments reflect his own workflow and judgment.
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