Policies

AgentRC — prime your repositories for AI-assisted development.

Policies customize how AgentRC scores readiness. Use them to disable irrelevant criteria, raise the bar on things that matter, or add custom checks.

Using a policy

agentrc readiness --policy ./policies/strict.json
agentrc readiness --policy ./base.json,./overrides.json   # chain multiple
agentrc readiness --policy @org/agentrc-policy-strict      # npm package

Or set it in configuration:

{
  "policies": ["./policies/strict.json"]
}

Built-in examples

AgentRC ships with three example policies in examples/policies/:

Policy	What it does
strict.json	100% pass rate, raises impact on key criteria
ai-only.json	Disables all repo-health checks, focuses on AI tooling
repo-health-only.json	Disables AI checks, focuses on traditional quality

Writing a policy

A policy is a JSON file with three optional sections:

{
  "name": "my-policy",
  "criteria": { ... },
  "extras": { ... },
  "thresholds": { ... }
}

Disable criteria

Remove checks that don't apply to your stack:

{
  "name": "no-infra-checks",
  "criteria": {
    "disable": ["env-example", "observability", "dependabot"]
  }
}

Override criteria

Change impact, level, or title of existing checks:

{
  "name": "custom-weights",
  "criteria": {
    "override": {
      "readme": { "impact": "high", "level": 2 },
      "lint-config": { "title": "Linter required" }
    }
  }
}

Set thresholds

Control the overall pass rate:

{
  "name": "strict-pass-rate",
  "thresholds": {
    "passRate": 0.9
  }
}

Add custom criteria

JSON policies can only customize existing criteria (disable, override, set thresholds). To add new criteria with custom detection logic, use a TypeScript/JavaScript policy module passed via --policy:

agentrc readiness --policy ./my-plugin.js

.ts policy files require a TypeScript-capable runtime (e.g., npx tsx) or must be compiled to .js first.

See Plugin System for the full plugin API.

Chaining policies

When multiple policies are applied, they merge in order. Later policies override earlier ones. Useful for layering an org baseline with team-specific customizations:

agentrc readiness --policy ./org-baseline.json,./team-frontend.json

Advanced: TypeScript plugins

For full control over the 5-stage detection/recommendation pipeline, write a TypeScript plugin module. This is an advanced escape hatch — most use cases are covered by JSON policies.

See Plugin System for the full plugin architecture, lifecycle hooks, and TypeScript API.

Scoring reference

Each recommendation has an impact level that maps to a weight:

Impact	Weight
critical	5
high	4
medium	3
low	2
info	0

Score = 1 - (total deductions / max possible weight). Grades: A >= 0.9, B >= 0.8, C >= 0.7, D >= 0.6, F < 0.6.

Extras

Extras are lightweight, optional checks for repository best practices. Unlike criteria, extras never affect the readiness score or pass rate — they’re reported in a separate section of readiness reports.

AgentRC ships with four built-in extras:

ID	What it checks
agents-doc	AGENTS.md is present
pr-template	Pull request template exists
pre-commit	Pre-commit hooks configured (Husky, etc.)
architecture-doc	Architecture documentation present

Disable extras

Remove extras that don’t apply:

{
  "name": "skip-extras",
  "extras": {
    "disable": ["agents-doc", "pre-commit"]
  }
}

Adding new extras requires a TypeScript plugin — they need a detection function that JSON can’t express. See Plugin System.

Next steps

• Configuration — reference policies from agentrc.config.json
• CI Integration — enforce policies in GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines
• Plugin System — advanced TypeScript plugin architecture