Act on this, mostly signal

998 of 5,464 CLAUDE.md files are only AGENTS.md pointers

What to do

Check your CLAUDE.md, since only plain @AGENTS.md imports load at startup.

Why

Claude Code 2.1.277 and later reads AGENTS.md directly when no CLAUDE.md exists.

What the research found

An instruction-quality analysis of top 10k GitHub repos finds 998 of 5,464 CLAUDE.md files are mere AGENTS.md pointers, and explains that only plain-text @AGENTS.md imports load at startup, while Claude Code 2.1.277+ reads AGENTS.md directly when no CLAUDE.md exists.

Claims and how well the evidence supports them

998 of 5,464 CLAUDE.md files in the 10k most starred repos are pointers to AGENTS.md 98%
Only 39 AGENTS.md files point back to CLAUDE.md 96%
Skills hold 42% of instructions versus 31% in main files 97%
On Claude Code 2.1.277+ with no CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md is read directly 98%

Evidence

reddit.com https://reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1xbq89e/final_piece_of_state_of_ai_instruction_quality_q3

Actionability rated high.