Agent instructions

Instructions are standing decisions the agent should follow. They are the place for the correction you keep making:

Mobile ships after web. Stop proposing mobile work in the first pass.
We do not use feature flags for anything customer-visible.

Unlike Context, which is material the agent reads, instructions are rules it follows. They are injected into every turn, so they shape the decision before the agent starts thinking rather than sitting in a document it might consult.

Four levels

They are additive, not overriding. The agent sees all four, narrowest last. A genuine conflict between two levels is yours to resolve, not something the system silently picks a winner for.

Your personal instructions are per workspace, so if you plan for two companies, each gets its own.

Keep them short

Instructions cost space in every single turn, so there is a cap on how much is injected. Write decisions, not documentation:

• Good: "Always include a rollback step for anything touching billing."
• Bad: three paragraphs explaining your billing architecture. That is Context.

The agent writes them too

As you plan, the agent notices how you work and writes instructions at the You, plan and project levels on its own. That is why the project instructions grow over time without anyone opening the settings screen.

Company instructions need approval

Company-level instructions reach every member's conversations, so they are owner-only and the agent can only propose them.

When it does, the settings screen shows "A change is waiting" with today's version and the proposed one side by side, and an owner approves or rejects. A member sees the pending change and a note that an owner needs to approve it.

Edit yours under Settings → Instructions, at either the workspace or the project level, and your own under your profile.