Chapter 5: Testing, Linting, and CI Alignment

Welcome to Chapter 5: Testing, Linting, and CI Alignment. In this part of AGENTS.md Tutorial: Open Standard for Coding-Agent Guidance in Repositories, you will build an intuitive mental model first, then move into concrete implementation details and practical production tradeoffs.

This chapter connects AGENTS.md instructions to actual quality gates.

Learning Goals

• encode required checks in agent instructions
• map local commands to CI workflows
• reduce false-positive “task complete” outcomes
• ensure agent outputs are merge-ready

Alignment Checklist

• explicit lint/test/build commands
• required pass criteria before PR submission
• path-specific test guidance for monorepos

Source References

• AGENTS.md README Example Sections
• AGENTS.md README (Testing Guidance Example)

Summary

You now can align AGENTS.md behavior with enforceable CI outcomes.

Next: Chapter 6: Team Rollout and Adoption Playbook

Source Code Walkthrough

AGENTS.md

The testing and CI alignment patterns described in this chapter are reflected in the AGENTS.md file itself, which documents the project's own test and lint commands. Agents reading this file know exactly which commands to run before submitting changes — the same principle this chapter teaches you to apply in your own repositories.

The upstream repo's package.json shows how the commands listed in AGENTS.md map to actual scripts, demonstrating the link between the specification and the CI configuration.