13/39
200+ lines
Published threshold
39 pinned files · 2026-09-01
What 39 popular repositories reveal about AGENTS.md decay.
We screened every root AGENTS.md in a commit-pinned top-100 GitHub snapshot. Two findings use the paper’s exact published thresholds; four are clearly labeled deterministic review proxies.
11/39
One file commit
Published threshold
37
Any automated flag
Includes proxies
39
Pinned root files
Public evidence
Six screens
Exact thresholds first. Proxies kept separate.
Context Bloat and Init Fossilization follow the paper’s stated rules. The remaining counts come from conservative, reproducible local pattern checks—not the paper’s model-assisted manual review.
Read the primary paperContext BloatPublished threshold
13/39Paper heuristic: 200 or more lines.
Skill LeakageProxy
0/39Deterministic section-density proxy.
Lint LeakageProxy
1/39Deterministic keyword-category proxy.
Blind ReferenceProxy
33/39Deterministic reference-context proxy.
Init FossilizationPublished threshold
11/39Paper heuristic: exactly one file commit.
Conflicting InstructionsProxy
24/39Deterministic instruction-overlap proxy.
Repository evidence
Every result links to its pinned source.
A flag means “review this signal.” It is not a repository score, a defect verdict, or a comparison of project quality.
| Repository | File | Exact thresholds | Proxy flags | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| openclaw/openclaw Rank #6 · 388.5K stars | 363 lines 577 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| vinta/awesome-python Rank #10 · 317.7K stars | 16 lines 7 file commits | No signal | 1of 4 | |
| obra/superpowers Rank #13 · 280.4K stars | 1 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 0of 4 | |
| affaan-m/ECC Rank #17 · 245.7K stars | 175 lines 129 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| mattpocock/skills Rank #18 · 243.8K stars | 1 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 0of 4 | |
| NousResearch/hermes-agent Rank #20 · 239.5K stars | 1785 lines 116 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| TheAlgorithms/Python Rank #21 · 224.2K stars | 63 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 1of 4 | |
| deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness Rank #25 · 208K stars | 155 lines 399 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| n8n-io/n8n Rank #26 · 203K stars | 348 lines 32 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| anomalyco/opencode Rank #27 · 203K stars | 162 lines 38 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| ultraworkers/claw-code Rank #31 · 195.2K stars | 93 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 1of 4 | |
| microsoft/vscode Rank #32 · 190.4K stars | 6 lines 3 file commits | No signal | 1of 4 | |
| Significant-Gravitas/AutoGPT Rank #36 · 187.1K stars | 70 lines 6 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| avelino/awesome-go Rank #40 · 182.9K stars | 53 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 1of 4 | |
| ollama/ollama Rank #41 · 179.9K stars | 22 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 1of 4 | |
| firecrawl/firecrawl Rank #45 · 175.2K stars | 19 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 2of 4 | |
| f/prompts.chat Rank #49 · 168.4K stars | 269 lines 2 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| huggingface/transformers Rank #51 · 164.7K stars | 1 lines 8 file commits | No signal | 0of 4 | |
| langgenius/dify Rank #54 · 154.1K stars | 16 lines 18 file commits | No signal | 1of 4 | |
| langflow-ai/langflow Rank #55 · 154K stars | 244 lines 8 file commits | Bloat | 1of 4 | |
| langchain-ai/langchain Rank #60 · 145.4K stars | 373 lines 30 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| yangshun/tech-interview-handbook Rank #63 · 142.4K stars | 77 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 2of 4 | |
| vercel/next.js Rank #64 · 142.1K stars | 561 lines 35 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| microsoft/PowerToys Rank #67 · 138.3K stars | 173 lines 4 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| ripienaar/free-for-dev Rank #70 · 136.2K stars | 10 lines 3 file commits | No signal | 0of 4 | |
| github/spec-kit Rank #73 · 132.9K stars | 602 lines 70 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| Comfy-Org/ComfyUI Rank #74 · 131.1K stars | 387 lines 12 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| excalidraw/excalidraw Rank #75 · 130.9K stars | 4 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 0of 4 | |
| garrytan/gstack Rank #76 · 130.9K stars | 138 lines 11 file commits | No signal | 1of 4 | |
| ggml-org/llama.cpp Rank #80 · 126.7K stars | 250 lines 12 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| react/react-native Rank #81 · 126.5K stars | 69 lines 2 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| kubernetes/kubernetes Rank #82 · 125.9K stars | 39 lines 4 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| rustdesk/rustdesk Rank #86 · 122.3K stars | 113 lines 10 file commits | No signal | 2of 4 | |
| openai/codex Rank #87 · 120.7K stars | 323 lines 75 file commits | Bloat | 3of 4 | |
| nodejs/node Rank #88 · 120.2K stars | 65 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 2of 4 | |
| DietrichGebert/ponytail Rank #89 · 119.8K stars | 33 lines 6 file commits | No signal | 1of 4 | |
| microsoft/generative-ai-for-beginners Rank #92 · 119K stars | 323 lines 3 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| rust-lang/rust Rank #94 · 117K stars | 244 lines 8 file commits | Bloat | 2of 4 | |
| Graphify-Labs/graphify Rank #99 · 113.3K stars | 9 lines 1 file commit | Fossilization | 1of 4 |
Reproducible method
Pinned files, path-scoped history, disclosed limits.
The 39 repositories with an exact root AGENTS.md in the commit-pinned September 1, 2026 top-100 adoption snapshot.
Every file is fetched from the exact repository commit recorded in the adoption snapshot.
File commit counts are taken from history reachable from the pinned commit, scoped to the root AGENTS.md path.
Context Bloat and Init Fossilization use the paper’s published thresholds.
Limits: This dataset is not a reproduction of the paper’s language-model-plus-manual-review method. Proxy flags can be false positives or miss context-dependent smells, and no flag is an overall repository quality score.
Reproduce or cite the dataset on GitHubCollector, deterministic analyzer, integrity checks, and versioned data files.Inspect your own file
Run the same deterministic screen live.
Enter a public GitHub repository, or paste a local AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md file.