dotfiles/agents/AGENTS.md

# Personal preferences

## Workflow

- **Specs, plans, and design docs go into the repo they describe.** When
  brainstorming, plan-mode, or any flow produces a persistent document
  (design spec, implementation plan, ADR, etc.), the final destination is
  always the working tree of the project it belongs to — typically
  under `docs/` (or wherever the project conventionally keeps them).
  Scratch locations like `~/.claude/plans/<slug>.md` are fine *during*
  plan mode, but the moment plan mode exits with an approved artifact,
  copy it into the repo and `git commit` it. Don't ship a feature
  while its spec or plan still lives only in a scratch file. If a
  project's `AGENTS.md` / `CLAUDE.md` specifies a different directory,
  that wins.

## Code health

Strategic over tactical, with follow-through. Each change should leave the
codebase at least as coherent as it was — don't just *flag* messiness, address it.

- **Default to acting on cleanups, not just mentioning them.** If you notice
  duplication, a band-aid, or an inconsistency, fix it as part of the work
  rather than leaving it as an observation. "I noticed X but didn't do it"
  is the anti-pattern — it leaves the user with both the mess *and* the
  homework of cleaning it up.
- **Scope boundary for inline cleanups: on-path AND reversible AND within
  files already being touched.** Inline when all three hold. If the cleanup
  crosses files, would be hard to undo, or is parallel to the task —
  surface it in 2-3 sentences and ask before pursuing.
- **Tolerate duplication until the pattern is real.** Removing existing
  duplication is welcome; inventing new abstractions speculatively is not.
  Rule of three: don't unify two instances, wait for the third.
- **Treat friction as architectural data.** Awkward expression, edits that
  ripple across files, patterns that recur with subtle variations, structure
  fighting the task — these are the architecture telling you something, not
  just noise to push through. Propose architectural changes when they'd
  make the code more sustainable. Frame as proposals with a clear ask
  ("now, or follow-up?"), not silent rewrites.

## Interpreting requests

Treat vague input and question-back responses critically, not as instructions.

- **Vagueness is not authorization.** "Make it cleaner", "maybe X?",
  "looks good but…" are signals to ask one clarifying question, not green
  lights to pick an interpretation and run.
- **A tangent is not an answer.** If you ask "A or B?" and get "maybe X?",
  that's a new question, not a pick. Surface the mismatch and ask which the
  user meant — don't bundle the tangent into the active task as if it were
  direction.

## Team memory (cognee)

cognee is a real memory, not an archive: unlike `MEMORY.md` it is **not**
injected automatically, so it only works if you fetch from it and write to it
on your own. The rules below are events, not attitudes — check them when the
event happens, not "when it feels right".

### Read: `recall` before you start

Run `recall` **before the first tool call**, not after you are already deep in
the task, when any of these is true:

- the task touches infrastructure, a server, a service, a ticket or a tool
  we run ourselves
- an error looks like it could have happened before ("this smells familiar")
- you are about to pick between options where a decision may already exist
- the task will plausibly take more than a handful of tool calls

`recall <question>` — no flags. It reads every readable dataset including the
team one. `--team` exists on `remember` only; on `recall` it is a usage error,
and `--dataset team-it` fails too because the team dataset is shared rather
than owned (it would need its UUID). Neither is needed: plain `recall` covers
everything.

Treat what comes back like a colleague's note: useful, possibly outdated. If a
memory names a file, flag or host, verify it still exists before acting on it.

### Write: `remember` at these moments

Announce it in one line, never ask first. Write **as the insight appears**, not
at the end of the session — by then the detail that made it worth saving is
gone.

- a bug is fixed and the cause was **not** visible in the code (config,
  limits, environment, an API that lies)
- a decision is made and an alternative was rejected — save the *why*, that is
  what the code cannot tell later
- a measurement contradicts an assumption, mine or yours
- you correct me, or I correct myself after being wrong
- a tool, API or service behaves differently than its docs claim

What does **not** belong there: anything the repo already records, anything
that only matters inside this one conversation, and never secrets,
credentials or customer-personal data.

### Routing and hygiene

- **Team bucket** (`remember --team`): everything concerning team IT — Seibert
  IT-Infra, ISAC/bw, monitoring, INFRA board, shared services, servers, team
  processes. Ask yourself: would a colleague hitting this next month benefit?
- **Personal dataset** (plain `remember`): my preferences, workflow feedback,
  context that is only relevant to me.
- On recurring topics `recall` first and **extend the existing note instead of
  adding a second one** — two notes on one topic are worse than none, because
  the older one keeps surfacing.
- Write notes that answer a question, not headlines. Include the concrete
  numbers, the error message verbatim, and the fix. A note that says "there
  was a problem with X" costs more time than it saves.
- No need to economize on characters: cognee has no size limit, so write
  notes comprehensively and self-contained.
- Always keep the external references and source links in the note — they
  matter: Confluence, Jira, TeamVault, and, for notes that grew out of a Google
  Chat discussion, the source-thread URLs
  (`https://chat.google.com/room/<SPACE-ID>/<THREAD-ID>`, for individual
  messages append the `<MESSAGE-ID>`) so the original discussion stays
  traceable — not just a separate index.

## Sandbox

- **Always run commands sandboxed first.** Only use `dangerouslyDisableSandbox: true` as a last resort after a sandbox-related failure — never preemptively.
- **On sandbox failure:** analyze the error message for the blocked path, then suggest adding it to `sandbox.filesystem.allowWrite` in `~/.claude/settings.json`. Only fall back to `dangerouslyDisableSandbox: true` if the path can't be determined or the user prefers it.

## Temporary Files

- **Use `$TMPDIR` or `.tmp/` (project-local) for temporary files.** Never use `/tmp` directly or paths like `/Library/Application Support` — those are not in the sandbox allowlist and trigger permission prompts.
- `$TMPDIR` is set by the sandbox to a writable path. `.tmp/` inside the project directory is always writable without prompts.
- Ensure `.tmp/` is listed in `.gitignore` when creating temp files in a tracked repo.

## Shell — literal `!` in Bash commands

- **Never put a literal `!` in an inline Bash command.** Claude Code's Bash tool
  escapes every `!` to `\!` at the transport layer before any shell sees it —
  even inside single/double quotes and in non-interactive shells
  (anthropics/claude-code#61121, a regression of a fix shipped in 2.1.87). The
  stray backslash corrupts downstream tools: Python `!=` → SyntaxWarning + broken
  string, jq, Jira JQL (`status != Done` → server 400), branch names, etc.
  `bash -c '...'` and quoted heredocs do **not** avoid it.
- **One rule covers everything:** if a command needs a `!`, write the command/code
  to a file with the Write tool under `.tmp/` and run the file. `.tmp/` is
  prompt-free via the `Edit(.tmp/**)` allow rule in `~/.claude/settings.json`. Do
  **not** create the file with inline `printf`/`echo >` — that re-escapes the `!`.
- Need a literal `!` inline anyway: ANSI-C hex `$'\x21'` (e.g. `B=$'\x21'; cmd
  "${B}=…"`) yields a real `!` with no literal `!` in the command.

## Tooling

- **Sourcebot MCP for org repos without a local checkout.** The
  `mcp__sourcebot__*` tools (instance sourcebot.it.seibert.diy) search
  the indexed Seibert codebases — Bitbucket DC/Cloud, Forgejo,
  seibert-external on GitHub. Reach for them when a question touches a
  repo that isn't cloned locally (other teams' code, cross-repo
  lookups, PR context): `grep`, `glob`, `read_file`, `list_tree`,
  `list_commits`, `get_diff`, `find_symbol_definitions`/`_references`
  answer in seconds and return file:line plus web links. A local
  checkout stays first choice when it exists. Never call
  `ask_codebase` on your own — it spawns a nested server-side agent
  (minutes per call, shared vLLM); use it only when explicitly asked.
- **`ccc` for semantic code search.** Repos containing a
  `.cocoindex_code/` directory are indexed by
  [`ccc`](https://github.com/cocoindex-io/cocoindex-code). Reach for
  it on conceptual questions ("where is X used / which files do Y /
  what handles Z"), where a keyword grep would miss indirect usage:
  `ccc search '<concept>'`. Results are filtered to the current working
  directory's subtree, so **run the search from the project root** — that is
  the cheap way to see everything. `--path '**'` achieves the same from a
  subdirectory, but from the root it is a no-op *and* about three times
  slower (measured 2026-09-02 on a 1005-file index: 0.35 s against 0.12 s,
  identical hits), so pass it only when you cannot control the cwd.
  **Embeddings only, no keyword component:** searching an exact string
  (a UUID, a ticket ID, an error message) does not return the file that
  contains it — verified. `grep`/`rg`/`find` own exact-string lookups.
  A low score is a warning, not a hit. The `ccc` skill has the full
  reference.
- **`ccc index` / `ccc init` are read-safe maintenance.** They only
  write to the gitignored `.cocoindex_code/` directory, never to
  source. Run them without confirmation prompts — at session start,
  after refactors, or before a search when the index may be stale.
  Treat like `grep` for permission purposes, not like a code edit.
- **`md` für lange Markdown-Dateien statt `head`/`grep -n '^#'`.**
  `md outline <datei>` gibt den Überschriftenbaum mit Zeilennummer und
  Größe pro Abschnitt (`[164 Zeilen, ~2.1k Tok]`) — daraus die
  Lese-Entscheidung treffen, dann `md section <datei> "<Überschrift>"`
  für genau diesen Teilbaum (Query auch als Slug oder `L48`; `--range`
  liefert `offset limit` fürs Read-Tool, `--depth 0` schneidet
  Unterabschnitte ab). Der Parser kennt Code-Fences und Frontmatter,
  findet also kein `# Kommentar` aus einem ```bash-Block als
  Überschrift — der Grund, `grep` hier nicht zu nehmen. Bei Dateien
  unter ~500 Zeilen direkt `Read`, der Umweg lohnt erst darüber.