ACS — Agentic Collaboration Standard

ACS defines how projects describe themselves to AI agents through a single .agents/ folder that any ACS-compatible agent can read, regardless of which tool, IDE, or platform you use.

The problem

Every agentic tool invents its own configuration format. Teams end up juggling different files and paths across tools such as Cursor, Zed, Claude Code, Gemini, Codex, Kiro, Trae, Windsurf, JetBrains Junie, Coodo, GitHub Copilot, Roo Code, Antigravity, Firebase Studio, and others.

In practice, that fragmentation shows up in vendor-specific files and folders:

Tool	Config file / path
Claude Code	CLAUDE.md + .claude/
Cursor	.cursorrules or .cursor/rules/
GitHub Copilot	.github/copilot-instructions.md
Codex (OpenAI)	AGENTS.md + ~/.codex/config.toml
Windsurf	.windsurfrules
Gemini CLI	GEMINI.md
Zed	.zed/ (editor settings with AI context)
Kiro	.kiro/steering/
JetBrains Junie	.junie/guidelines.md
Trae	.trae/rules/
Aider	.aider.conf.yml or CONVENTIONS.md
AGENTS.md-based tools	AGENTS.md

Note: this table is a compatibility landscape snapshot for context, not a normative ACS contract. Tool-specific file names can change over time.

Teams working with multiple tools duplicate effort. Knowledge stays trapped in vendor-specific formats.

The solution

One folder for ACS-compatible agents.

your-project/
└── .agents/
    ├── main.yaml          # Manifest: what this project uses
    ├── context/          # What agents need to KNOW
    ├── skills/           # What agents can DO
    ├── commands/         # Reusable single-shot tasks
    ├── agents/           # Named subagents for specific roles
    └── permissions/      # What agents are ALLOWED to do

Install

# npm (Node.js)
npm install -g agentic-standard

# pip (Python)
pip install agentic-standard

Or install the VS Code extension from the Marketplace.

Quick start

# Scaffold a new .agents/ folder in your project
acs init

# Validate your existing .agents/ setup
acs validate

# List discovered layers
acs ls

The CLI generates a ready-to-use .agents/ structure with a main.yaml manifest and a starter context/project.md — no manual YAML editing required.

Documentation

• Why ACS?
• Getting Started
• For non-developers
• For tool builders
• Full specification →

Compatibility

ACS is designed to coexist with existing standards:

• Works alongside AGENTS.md
• Compatible with SKILL.md (agentskills.io)
• Generates CLAUDE.md content on demand
• Complements MCP (different layer)

See compatibility guides →

Status

ACS is at v1.0.0-beta. The spec, CLI, and VS Code extension are published and functional. We're gathering real-world feedback before cutting the official stable v1.0.0 release.

Component	Version	Registry
CLI (agentic-standard)	1.0.3	npm · PyPI
VS Code extension (acs-vscode)	0.1.3	Marketplace
Spec	v1.0	spec/v1/

Roadmap · Contributing · Adopters