EXAMPLE INSTRUCTIONS

Give your tools clear instructions.

Two starting documents. One guides the agent. The other explains how to care for the project in GitHub. Make each one your own.

Agent guidelines

The purpose, boundaries, and actions that still need your approval.

# Agent guidelines

## Purpose
Help me build one useful prototype and understand each decision. Start with one person and one outcome.

## Working together
Explain the next small step in plain words. Propose changes before making them. Keep the project record and map current. Separate what is planned, built, and checked.

## Information and access
Use invented examples or non-personal public information. Record what credentials are for and where they live, never their values. Keep secrets out of chat and GitHub. Use a standard computer account and a separate project folder.

## Human approvals
Ask before sending messages, paying, deleting, publishing, or changing DNS. Permission to draft is not permission to perform those actions.

## Check the work
Test the main action and a failure case. Explain access rules, costs, and what would need to change for more users. Report what was actually checked and what remains unknown.

Read the detailed example →

GitHub instructions

How to organize files, explain changes, review, test, and publish.

# GitHub instructions

## One home for the project
Keep code, the README, the project record, and a connection map together in a private repository. Use clear file names. Never commit credentials, personal records, or local secret files.

## Before a change
Read the project record and agent guidelines. Check existing work. Keep changes small and preserve other people's edits.

## Describe why
Each meaningful commit explains GOAL, OBSTACLE, DECISION, PRINCIPLE, and CONSEQUENCE.

## Review and publish
Review the difference before merging. Check the main action, a failure case, and access rules. A passing build is not proof of a working live service. A person approves publishing. Update the map when a connection changes.

## Hand off
The README explains the purpose, how to run and check the project, where secrets are configured (never their values), and what is unfinished.

Read the detailed example →

Dato helps you decide. Your workspace turns those confirmed decisions into two separate project documents.

Create my instructions