AGENTS.md the Hermes Agent does not load the subdirectory, check if it actually accessed the subdirectory. The official context files mechanism loads the project root context at startup and also looks up the subdirectory rules along the directory after a tool call involves a path. If you don't touch the path, it may not load in advance.
Suitable for monorepo
Root AGENTS.md Write global rules, such as package manager, commit specification, prohibited actions; frontend/AGENTS.md Write front-end rules; backend/AGENTS.md Write backend rules. This way, when Hermes processes specific paths, it will see instructions that are closer to the current directory.
Troubleshooting steps
- Let Hermes explicitly read the target path, such as "Look at the implementation under frontend/src/app".
- Verify that the subdirectory filename is a supported rule file, such as AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or .cursorrules.
- Documents that are too long will be truncated, so try to keep them short.
- If it is blocked by a security scan, clean up the suspicious content first.
Don't cram all the details to the root AGENTS.md. Large repositories are better suited to "root rules + subdirectory rules", which not only reduces tokens, but also allows agents to adhere to the correct specifications within the correct scope.
