Support and guidance for using arc42 alongside AI coding instruction files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md) #232
Description
In both a private project and my day-to-day work project I’m currently facing the same question: how should we handle the coexistence of classic project documentation (e.g., Markdown files structured according to arc42) and the new, AI-focused instruction/documentation files intended for tools like GitHub Copilot and Claude?
Examples of these emerging “AI doc files” include:
AGENTS.md: https://github.com/agentsmd/agents.mdCLAUDE.md: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory
Questions I have:
- Are there plans to support this in arc42 (e.g., an “AI-ready” variant of the template or guidance on where these files fit)?
- Is there already a recommended best practice for combining arc42 documentation with
AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md(and similar files)? - How do you recommend avoiding duplication and drift between human-oriented documentation and AI-oriented instructions?
I’m not an expert in “AI doc files” nor in arc42, but I suspect many teams are starting to run into this. Clear guidance (or a template extension) could be valuable and might further increase arc42 adoption as AI-assisted development becomes more common.