Stop Asking AI Agents to Guess How Your Repo Works

AI coding agents are getting better, but a lot of repos still make them start from guesswork.

They land in a codebase and have to infer:

• which command installs dependencies
• which command starts the app
• which services need to be running
• which env vars matter
• which workflow is safe to run
• whether the repo is actually ready
• what “done” should look like after a change

That is a lot of operational knowledge to hide in scattered README sections, old shell scripts, CI files, tribal memory, and half-working local setup notes.

And when an agent guesses wrong, the problem is not always the agent.

Sometimes the repo never gave it a reliable answer.

AI Agents Amplify Repo Readiness

A human contributor can pause, read docs, ask questions, remember past setup quirks, and work around drift.

An AI agent usually does something else: it follows the strongest signal it can find.

If your README says one thing, your CI says another, your package scripts say a third, and your local setup depends on an undocumented service, the agent has to choose. Sometimes it chooses well. Sometimes it burns time. Sometimes it changes the wrong thing because the repo never made the safe path explicit.

That is why repo readiness matters.

Before asking an AI agent to work in a repo, the repo should be able to answer basic questions clearly:

• What does this repo need?
• How does it become ready?
• What tasks are safe to run?
• What checks prove the repo still works?
• What paths should an agent avoid?
• What workflow should be used for this kind of change?

If those answers are not explicit, every agent has to rediscover them from scratch.

README Instructions Are Not Enough

READMEs are useful for humans, but they are not enough as the only source of operational truth.

A README can explain intent, context, and contribution style. But repo readiness needs something more precise:

• declared runtimes
• declared tools
• declared services
• declared tasks
• declared workflows
• declared checks
• declared agent boundaries

That information should be machine-readable.

Not because humans do not matter, but because humans, CI, and agents should not each maintain separate versions of the same setup logic.

When setup knowledge only exists as prose, it drifts. When it drifts, automation becomes fragile. When automation becomes fragile, agents become less trustworthy.

The Repo Should Tell The Agent What Ready Means

A good agent workflow should not begin with:

“Look around and figure out how this repo works.”

It should begin with:

“Here is the repo contract. Diagnose readiness first. Use the declared workflow. Run the safe task. Respect protected paths.”

That is the difference between guessing and operating.

This is the layer I care about with Ota.

Ota gives a repo one explicit readiness contract: ota.yaml.

That contract can declare the repo’s tasks, checks, services, workflows, toolchains, env requirements, and agent-safe boundaries. Then humans, CI, and AI agents can all use the same source of truth.

For example:

ota doctor
ota workflows
ota tasks --workflow app
ota up --workflow app
ota run test

The point is not to replace good documentation.

The point is to stop making documentation carry operational truth alone.

What Agents Need From A Repo

An AI agent does not need magic. It needs clear boundaries.

A solid repo should be able to say:

agent:
  entrypoint: test
  default_task: test
  safe_tasks:
    - test
    - lint
    - typecheck
  protected_paths:
    - .env
    - secrets/**
    - production/**

The agent boundary tells agents which task to start from, which tasks are safe, and which paths are protected. The instruction is simple: run ota doctor first, then use declared safe tasks instead of guessing from repo scripts.

It should also be able to say what ready means:

workflows:
  default: app
  app:
    setup:
      task: setup
    run:
      task: dev
    readiness:
      checks:
        - app-ready

Now the agent is not guessing from random scripts.

It has a contract.

It knows the default workflow. It knows the safe tasks. It knows what not to touch. It knows which checks matter.

That is a better starting point for any coding agent.

CI Should Prove The Same Truth

Repo readiness should not only help local agents. It should also show up in CI.

If a repo has an explicit readiness contract, CI can prove that contract across environments:

name: ota-readiness

on:
  pull_request:
  push:

jobs:
  readiness:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ota-run/setup@v1
      - run: ota doctor
      - run: ota validate .
      - run: ota up

That gives maintainers something concrete.

Not “the agent says it worked.”

A repeatable readiness check.

Why This Matters Now

AI agents are moving from demos into real repos.

That changes the bar.

A repo that is “understandable if you already know it” is not enough. A repo that “usually works after reading three docs pages” is not enough. A repo that depends on one maintainer’s memory is not enough.

If we want agents to make useful changes safely, repos need to become easier to reason about.

That means:

• fewer hidden setup steps
• fewer undocumented services
• fewer ambiguous commands
• fewer unsafe default paths
• more explicit readiness
• more machine-readable operational truth

The better your repo contract, the better every agent run becomes.

Get Started With Ota

Install Ota:

curl -fsSL https://dist.ota.run/install.sh | sh

Windows:

irm https://dist.ota.run/install.ps1 | iex

Then start with:

ota doctor
ota init --bootstrap
ota validate .
ota workflows
ota tasks

Useful links:

• Install Ota: ota.run/docs/install
• Ota docs: ota.run/docs
• Ota source code: github.com/ota-run/ota
• Example contracts: github.com/ota-run/examples
• GitHub Action: github.com/ota-run/action
• GitHub setup action: github.com/ota-run/setup

If your repo already has setup scripts, CI workflows, and contributor docs, Ota does not replace them blindly.

It helps turn the important parts into an explicit contract that humans, CI, and agents can all share.

Final Thought

AI agents should not have to reverse-engineer your repo every time they enter it.

Make the repo ready first.

Then let the agent work.

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Originally Posted here: https://ota.run/blog/stop-asking-ai-agents-to-guess-how-your-repo-works-2olh