Brief, mostly facts
Study finds 34% of popular GitHub projects ship agent instructions
The review of 1,866 projects found about three in five agent rules are script-checkable. Under 4% of rules name the check they rely on.
What the research found
Study of 1,866 popular GitHub projects finds 34% ship an agent instruction file, about three in five rules are script-checkable, but under 4% of rules name their check.
Claims and how well the evidence supports them
- 627 of 1,866 popular GitHub projects (34%) ship at least one agent instruction file 99%
- Three in five sampled rules could be checked by a script, at least in part (157 of 257) 99%
- Fewer than one rule in twenty names its check (16 of 431, 3.7%) 99%
- Half of main instruction files exceed 100 lines (302 of 582) 99%
Evidence
- secondtimeisabug.com https://secondtimeisabug.com/blog/what-projects-tell-ai-coding-agents
Actionability rated low.