Goose (goose)

Output

AGENTS.md                          # canonical entry-point pointer body + inlined rules (written by sync, shared path)
.agents/agents/<name>.md           # one project agent (shared with OpenHands)
.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md     # one folder per skill (shared tree with codex/amp/zed/crush)
.agents/plugins/agnostic-ai/plugin.json
.agents/plugins/agnostic-ai/hooks/hooks.json
.goosehints                        # opt-in concatenated rules, only when rules-file is set
.agents/REVIEW.md                  # root review instructions
<scope>/.agents/REVIEW.md          # directory-specific review instructions

Block Goose reads both the root AGENTS.md and a .goosehints file. By default rule bodies inline into the shared AGENTS.md ## Rules block, so Goose needs no extra file for rules. Set outputs.goose.rules-file: .goosehints to also write a concatenated .goosehints document.

Project agents load from .agents/agents/<name>.md with name, description, optional free-form model, and the prompt body. OpenHands reads the same primary path and fields, so both adapters use one byte-identical renderer and sync dedupes their writes. A generic tools list is omitted with a coverage note because Goose's documented project-agent fields do not include it. Target-specific x-goose fields remain available; set a different outputs.goose.agents-dir if they make the file differ from another target sharing the default path.

Skills load from .agents/skills/, the recommended standard in Goose's own docs, ahead of a legacy .goose/skills/, .claude/skills/, and others it also discovers. The render is byte-identical to codex, amp, zed, and crush's, so the shared tree dedupes into one write. Goose stays opt-in regardless (see Selecting targets). MCP specs still skip with a warning.

Hooks emit as a complete Open Plugins package. The manifest lives at .agents/plugins/agnostic-ai/plugin.json, and the wrapped hook map at hooks/hooks.json. All 12 documented events pass through, matcher is a regular expression, timeout is seconds (vendor default 30), and x-goose.on_failure accepts allow or block for PreToolUse failure policy.

Goose discovers additional context files (any of CONTEXT_FILE_NAMES, default AGENTS.md and .goosehints) as it reads or modifies files in nested subdirectories, not just at the working directory and repository root. Scoped rules use nested AGENTS.md by default. With the rules-file opt-in set, a rule carrying a source-layout or frontmatter scope (e.g. backend/) routes into a sibling backend/.goosehints instead of flattening into the root document. Rules sharing a scope concatenate into that scope's one file, the same "one file per scope" shape the root document already used (#608).

goose review reads .agents/REVIEW.md and <scope>/.agents/REVIEW.md from directories containing changed files and their ancestors, so root and scoped guidance compose. Same-scope bodies concatenate, and routing frontmatter is omitted because the loader reads plain text. The v1.50.0 CLI reference documents this surface. Agent-shaped check files remain outside this adapter.

Config keys

Verify

1. Install Goose (docs).
2. Check the tree: ls AGENTS.md .agents/agents/ .agents/skills/, plus .goosehints when outputs.goose.rules-file is set.
3. Launch goose; it reads AGENTS.md (and .goosehints when present) as context, each .agents/agents/<name>.md appears as a project agent, and each .agents/skills/<name>/ appears as a skill.