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agent-rules-books

Provides AI coding agents with distilled rules and skills for code quality, refactoring, and software architecture based on classic programming books.

AGENTS.md rules / skills for AI coding agents: Codex, Cursor & Claude Code. Inspired by Clean Code, Refactoring, DDD, Clean Architecture and DDIA programming books.

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What you can do with it

Guide agent to refactor code using principles from "Clean Code".
Apply Domain-Driven Design (DDD) patterns when building new features.
Ensure code quality and maintainability based on proven software engineering books.

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From the README

AI agents Rules / Skills fromProgramming Books v0.6

<strong>AGENTS.md rules</strong> / <strong>skills</strong> for <strong>Codex</strong>, <strong>Cursor</strong>, <strong>Claude Code</strong>, distilled from classic <strong>software engineering books</strong> about refactoring, architecture, DDD and code quality.



About
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Installation
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Rules / Skills
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Books List
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Usage
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Books Compatibility

About

MIT licensed universal project rules for coding agents.

This repository contains ready-to-use rule sets inspired by well-known books on software design, architecture, refactoring, legacy code, reliability, and data-intensive systems.

For editor-specific setup in Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, see USAGE.md. It covers always-on vs on-demand usage, skills, scoped rules, and the preferred setup for each editor.

Each rule set is released in three tool-agnostic Markdown versions:

mini: the recommended version for most real task use
nano: the compact fallback for very tight context budgets
full: the canonical complete source and reference version

For constructive criticism from Reddit, see CRITICISM.md.

For release history, see CHANGELOG.md.

Installation as Skills

Prerequisite: install Node.js with npm. You can run the Skills CLI through npx without installing skills separately.

Install all book skills with the open Agent Skills CLI:

npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --all

List available skills without installing:

npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --list

Install one selected skill:

npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --skill refactoring

Every book directory contains a standard SKILL.md entrypoint. The skill loads the corresponding mini rule set by default and keeps the full file available as deeper reference material.

If you prefer another setup, see USAGE.md for manual, scoped, always-on, and editor-specific installation patterns.

Release Matrix

Metrics:

lines: physical line count from wc -l
rules: Markdown list items counted with the deterministic release convention
size: raw bytes from wc -c

Rule Set	Full file	Full lines	Full rules	Full size	Mini file	Mini lines	Mini rules	Mini size	Nano file	Nano lines	Nano rules	Nano size
A Philosophy of Software Design	full	370	177	13561 B	mini	46	28	5774 B	nano	35	17	2258 B
Clean Architecture	full	515	289	17782 B	mini	49	31	5486 B	nano	36	18	2254 B
Clean Code	full	297	220	13851 B	mini	47	29	3804 B	nano	32	14	1235 B
Code Complete	full	354	180	12407 B	mini	56	38	6717 B	nano	41	23	2544 B
Designing Data-Intensive Applications	full	393	205	16084 B	mini	55	37	6949 B	nano	34	16	2575 B
Domain-Driven Design	full	979	523	42424 B	mini	48	30	5683 B	nano	39	21	2266 B
Domain-Driven Design Distilled	full	317	158	11351 B	mini	56	38	6438 B	nano	41	23	2535 B
Implementing Domain-Driven Design	full	337	177	12848 B	mini	57	39	7333 B	nano	37	19	2723 B
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture	full	404	196	15501 B	mini	54	36	8099 B	nano	35	17	2823 B
Refactoring	full	433	242	17866 B	mini	49	31	5167 B	nano	37	19	1986 B
Release It!	full	382	204	13542 B	mini	48	30	6372 B	nano	38	20	2205 B
[The Pragmatic Progra

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