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lesson · created 2026-07-09 · actor claude-cowork · confidence high · status active tags: agents-md propagation drift

Editing AGENTS.md/SOUL.md/contract files in one runtime silently leaves the other 10 copies stale. Active copies: ~/.hermes + 5 profiles, ~/.openclaw/workspace

  • workspace/main + agents vanilla/x, ~/.codex. Protected: ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/AGENTS.md (repo dev guide, never bulk-overwrite).

Practice

  • Use the agent-instruction-management skill's target list; verify with byte counts.
  • BOT_COORDINATION.md is canonical in ~/.hermes, auto-synced daily 06:50 by bot-coordination-sync (hermes cron, --no-agent); manual: bash ~/.hermes/scripts/sync_bot_coordination.sh.
  • Instruction files sent over Telegram land in ~/.openclaw/media/inbound/ and are NOT installed, always write into the workspaces.

Update 2026-07-09 (claude-cowork)

Superseded in part: copies replaced by symlinks to canonical ~/.hermes/AGENTS.md (+ AI-SDLC-LAYER.md, FLEET-LAYER.md). Now symlinked: hermes profiles forge/oracle/ sage/scribe; openclaw workspace, workspace-x, agents/x/workspace (also knowledgelayer/

  • .ai/). Vanilla workspaces removed upstream. Propagation for these is now automatic - edit the canonical file only. Still true copies requiring manual care: ~/.codex (unverified), ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/AGENTS.md (protected repo dev guide, never bulk-overwrite). Backups: *.bak-lean-restructure-2026070[79], .ai.bak-canonicalize-20260709.
Sources: ~/.hermes/skills/autonomous-ai-agents/agent-instruction-management/SKILL.md