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What is dox?

agent0ai/dox — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

40Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

A copy-paste Markdown framework of nested AGENTS.md files that keeps AI coding agents oriented and consistent as a project grows.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((DOX))
    What it does
      Keeps AI agents oriented
      Maintains AGENTS.md tree
      Updates docs after edits
    Tech stack
      Markdown
      AGENTS.md convention
    Use cases
      Give agents local context
      Auto update documentation
      Initialize new AGENTS.md tree
    Audience
      Developers using AI agents
      Agent Zero users

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Give an AI coding agent local, up-to-date context before it edits any part of a growing codebase.

USE CASE 2

Keep project documentation current automatically as the AI agent updates AGENTS.md files after changes.

USE CASE 3

Initialize a full AGENTS.md tree from scratch in an existing project with no documentation yet.

USE CASE 4

Prevent an AI agent from wandering into unrelated parts of a project it was not asked to touch.

What is it built with?

MarkdownAGENTS.md

How does it compare?

agent0ai/doxasimons81/hermes-dreamingbaskduf/harness-starter-kit
Stars404040
LanguagePythonPython
Setup difficultyeasymoderateeasy
Complexity1/53/52/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Nothing to install, copy the AGENTS.md content into your project and a compatible agent picks it up.

So what is it?

DOX is a tiny framework for keeping AI coding agents oriented inside a project as it grows and changes. It works by maintaining a set of AGENTS.md files, which are plain Markdown documents that AI agents read automatically to understand how a project is structured and what rules apply in each part of it. The framework creates a hierarchy of these files. A root AGENTS.md at the top of the project holds project-wide instructions and an index of the structure. Subdirectories can each have their own AGENTS.md with local rules specific to that part of the codebase. Before an AI agent makes any edit, it is instructed to walk from the root down to the area it intends to touch, reading the relevant files along the way. After making meaningful changes, it updates the affected AGENTS.md files to keep the documentation current. The intended outcome is that the AI agent has precise local context before it touches anything, so it makes fewer blind edits, stays consistent with existing conventions, and does not wander into parts of the project it was not asked to change. There is nothing to install. DOX is just a Markdown file with instructions inside it. You copy the contents of the project's AGENTS.md into your own project's AGENTS.md, and any compatible AI agent will pick it up automatically. If you have an existing project with no AGENTS.md yet, you can tell your agent to initialize the DOX tree and it will create all the child files and indexes from scratch. The project is created by Agent Zero, an open-source agentic AI framework, and works with Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, and similar tools that support AGENTS.md files.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Copy the DOX AGENTS.md contents into my project and initialize the DOX tree from scratch.
Prompt 2
Read the relevant AGENTS.md files from root down to this directory before making any edits here.
Prompt 3
Update the AGENTS.md files affected by the changes I just made to keep the docs current.
Prompt 4
Explain how DOX's hierarchy of AGENTS.md files works for a project with multiple subdirectories.
Prompt 5
Set up DOX so Claude Code stays consistent with this project's existing conventions.

Frequently asked questions

What is dox?

A copy-paste Markdown framework of nested AGENTS.md files that keeps AI coding agents oriented and consistent as a project grows.

How hard is dox to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is dox for?

Mainly developer.

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