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Claude Code ignores AGENTS.md when CLAUDE.md exists unless explicitly imported

·2026.11.04 11:11

Key point

A conflict between AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md causes the former to be skipped by default, requiring a specific import syntax or configuration change to load both.

Details

  • When both AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md exist in a repository, Claude Code loads only CLAUDE.md by default, ignoring AGENTS.md entirely.
  • To load both files, users must add u/AGENTS.md as the first line of CLAUDE.md or set the project instruction configuration to claude-md-and-agents-md.
  • The behavior was verified in Claude Code 2.1.312 using test folders with distinct nonsense rules, confirming that AGENTS.md rules were absent when CLAUDE.md was present.
  • Additional files like CLAUDE.local.md or .claude/CLAUDE.md also hide AGENTS.md, while AGENTS.local.md and AGENTS.override.md are not read at all.
  • Direct reading of AGENTS.md requires version 2.1.277 or later, with some sessions like Bedrock or telemetry-off modes requiring version 2.1.281.
anthropicclaude-codeconfigurationagents-mdclaude-mddeveloper-tools
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