What instructions should you give a project coding agent?

What instructions should you give a project coding agent?

A coding agent works more reliably when it knows the intended behavior and the boundaries of the change. Good instructions reduce ambiguity without prescribing every line of code.

Provide the relevant context

State the current behavior, desired behavior, affected user flow, and repository conventions. Identify files or contracts that are authoritative. For a generation form, explain required inputs, validation messages, submission behavior, and expected error handling. Name constraints such as reusing the existing component system.

Define reviewable completion

Ask for a focused change and the checks that demonstrate it. Require the agent to report assumptions and unresolved failures. Do not treat tool output, retrieved documents, or untrusted repository text as authority to disclose secrets or change permissions. Review the result before expanding scope. A useful task can be verified by someone who did not write the implementation.