Every "agentic" IDE or CLI tool has its own proprietary way of being "instructed": Cursor has .cursorrules, Claude Code has custom hooks, Copilot has instruction files. As developers, we are now forced to re-implement our repository's "rules of engagement" for every new tool we adopt; or even worse, our codebase becomes cluttered with all these tool-specific "instructions".
The real problem isn't that agents are "bad" at following instructions; it's that we lack a standard interface to communicate what a repository is and how it can be safely operated.
I built devBox to move the source of truth out of tool-specific config files and into a single deterministic execution contract that lives in the ".box/" directory in each repo.
The Concept: One contract, any agent.
Why this matters: This approach allows for a "Write Once, Run Anywhere" workflow for AI agents. Whether you are using Cursor, Windsurf, or a custom LLM script, they should be able to interact with your repo through the same deterministic interface and under the same security guardrails.
I'm curious to hear from others: Are you also feeling the "instruction bloat" of maintaining 5 different .rules files for 5 different tools? How are you centralizing your repo's operational logic?