terso

One source of truth for AI agent instructions, in every project.

terso emit compiles a single AGENTS.md into the config files each AI coding agent expects — CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules, .github/copilot-instructions.md — so you maintain one file instead of three.

AGENTS.md  →  CLAUDE.md
            →  .cursorrules
            →  .github/copilot-instructions.md

Install

npm install -g terso-cli

Quick start

# In your project root
terso emit

If AGENTS.md doesn't exist yet, run terso init first to scaffold a template.

How it works

1. You write project rules once in AGENTS.md.
2. terso emit writes them out to whichever per-agent files your repo uses.
3. Each emitted file starts with a marker comment so re-running emit is safe and won't clobber files you maintain by hand.

By default, emit only writes to targets that look active in your repo (detected via presence of .cursor/, CLAUDE.md, .github/, etc.). On a fresh repo with no hints, it writes all three so you can pick what to keep.

Commands

terso emit

Compile AGENTS.md into per-agent configs at the project root.

| Flag | Behavior | |---|---| | --targets <list> | Comma-separated subset: claude, cursor, copilot | | --check | Exit non-zero if any file would change. Use in CI. | | --dry-run | Show what would change without writing | | --force | Overwrite files even if not marked as terso-generated | | --watch | Re-emit on every save of AGENTS.md |

CI gate example

# .github/workflows/agents.yml
- run: npx terso-cli emit --check

This fails the build if anyone hand-edits CLAUDE.md or .cursorrules without updating the canonical AGENTS.md.

terso mcp

Run an MCP server that exposes project context to any agent client. Three tools:

• terso_get_context — returns AGENTS.md + any synced files in .terso/generated/. Works offline.
• terso_search — search project knowledge in Omnus. Requires auth.
• terso_capture — send a knowledge fragment to Omnus. Requires auth.

Print install snippets for popular clients:

terso mcp install --client claude
terso mcp install --client cursor
terso mcp install --client codex

Example for Claude Code (drop into .mcp.json or ~/.claude.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "terso": { "command": "terso", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

Other commands

terso also includes commands for syncing project knowledge with the Omnus service (init, auth, sync, watch, capture, search, compile, status, doctor). The emit command works without Omnus — it's pure local file compilation.

Why

Most teams using AI coding agents end up maintaining the same project rules in 3–4 places: .cursorrules for Cursor, CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, .github/copilot-instructions.md for Copilot, often AGENTS.md too. They drift. People update one and forget the others. Reviewers can't tell which file is canonical.

terso emit makes one of them canonical — AGENTS.md, the format with the broadest cross-tool acceptance — and treats the rest as compilation output.

License

MIT