AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md examples for Electron
Of 118 actively developed open-source products built with Electron, 78 (66%) keep instruction files for coding agents: AGENTS.md in 64, CLAUDE.md in 55. The typical file is 1,007 words, and most cover pointers to other docs (75%) and commands to build, run and test (69%).
Real files to read
From the best-known open-source Electron products whose file is a real one (not a pointer to another), 200 to 4,000 words, covering at least three of the usual topics and naming Electron. Each opens on GitHub.
| Project | File | Stars | Words | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NousResearch/hermes-agent | AGENTS.md | 252,829 | 1,572 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructure |
| Kong/insomnia | AGENTS.md | 40,043 | 652 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructure |
| RSSNext/Folo | AGENTS.md | 39,089 | 986 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructureCode styleGit |
| actualbudget/actual | AGENTS.md | 29,447 | 2,600 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructureCode styleGit |
| pingdotgg/t3code | AGENTS.md | 27,021 | 2,767 | TestingDoc pointersGit |
| gitbutlerapp/gitbutler | AGENTS.md | 21,800 | 278 | TestingDoc pointersCode style |
| Foundry376/Mailspring | CLAUDE.md | 17,906 | 1,293 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructureCode style |
| MODSetter/SurfSense | AGENTS.md | 16,374 | 1,263 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructureGit |
| superset-sh/superset | AGENTS.md | 15,083 | 2,054 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructure |
| Untrivial-ai/agent-orchestrator | AGENTS.md | 13,085 | 1,890 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructureCode styleGit |
| omnigent-ai/omnigent | AGENTS.md | 10,753 | 909 | CommandsDoc pointersGit |
| ValueCell-ai/ClawX | AGENTS.md | 7,608 | 1,131 | CommandsTestingDoc pointersStructure |
What Electron projects put in them
Share of the 75 files that cover each topic, against all 641 files we read.
How they talk to the agent: 83% say “never” or “do not” somewhere (all files: 80%), 20% shout a rule in capitals like IMPORTANT or MUST (24%), and 20% tell it to ask before some changes (20%).
The tools they name
Package managersnpm (23 files), pnpm (18 files), bun (8 files)
Tests and lintersPlaywright (17), Vitest (15), ESLint (15), Prettier (11), pytest (8), Jest (4)
Named more than in files generallyReact (38), Cursor (16), SQLite (15)
A starting AGENTS.md for Electron
The sections these files cover most, the package manager and checks Electron projects name most, and the stack Electron makers' products chose most often. Fill in the <placeholders>.
# AGENTS.md <What this product does and who it is for, in a sentence or two.> ## Stack ## Commands - Install: `pnpm install` - Run locally: `<command>` - Test: `pnpm exec vitest run` - End-to-end tests: `pnpm exec playwright test` - Lint: `pnpm exec eslint .` ## Testing Run `pnpm exec vitest run` and `pnpm exec playwright test` before calling a change done, and add a test with each fix or feature. ## Project structure - `<folder>/`: <what lives there> - More in <docs/…> ## Conventions - <Naming, patterns and style the code does not show> - Commits and pull requests: <your rules> ## Boundaries - Ask before: <changes you want to approve first> - Never: <files or actions that are off-limits> <!-- Started from https://howmakersbuild.com/agents-md/electron — point CLAUDE.md here with a line: @AGENTS.md -->
- pnpm: named in 142 of 521 instruction files from open-source projects built with TypeScript.
- Vitest: named in 112 of 521 instruction files from open-source projects built with TypeScript.
- Playwright: named in 105 of 521 instruction files from open-source projects built with TypeScript.
- ESLint: named in 91 of 521 instruction files from open-source projects built with TypeScript.
Questions
What should an AGENTS.md for a Electron project include?
In 75 files from open-source Electron products: pointers to other docs (75%), commands to build, run and test (69%), testing (69%), project structure (55%), code style (47%), git, commits and pull requests (41%). The package manager they name most is npm (23 files).
AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md?
Among these Electron products, 64 keep an AGENTS.md and 55 a CLAUDE.md. Across every product we checked, 320 keep both, and in 170 of those the CLAUDE.md only points to the AGENTS.md (a symlink or a line like @AGENTS.md), so there's one file to maintain. Codex, Cursor, Copilot and others read AGENTS.md; Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md.
How long is a typical Electron AGENTS.md?
The median is 1,007 words in these 75 files; across all 641 files we read, half are between 425 and 1,665 words.
How this is counted: the GitHub repos of open-source products built with Electron, pushed to in the 180 days before 2026-10-12. We read each repo's AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md and other agent files; what's published here is counts and links, not their text. All files, by the numbers.