Your agent plays dumb because it assumes you know what you want.
Rules for Working With Me is the one-page file you hand your AI agent (Claude Code or any coding agent) so it stops making you do the work by hand, stops stopping to ask questions, and stops forgetting. Ten lines. Five phrases. One decision rule. Fill in the template, paste it in. Free from Brad Hart, mined from five Optimus Mastermind calls (August 26 to September 23, 2026) where the same complaint came up on all five: "I think that's the biggest learning curve for me is the communication with the agent."
What's in the file
- The rules file — how you communicate, how you want the agent to communicate, this-not-that, and the running list of things it did that irritated you. Add a line every time it goes off the rails; the error rate drops from roughly every third time to a few percent.
- The five phrases — "Is there an API or MCP that lets you do this for me instead of me doing it by hand? Don't guess, read the docs." · "Ask me every question you have now, then don't stop until it's done. No sandbagging." · "Do everything you can possibly do yourself that doesn't require me; when you truly can't, give me the exact step-by-step and the links, and I'll do it." · "Write me a handoff file; I'm opening a fresh window." · "Load the skill and confirm you actually read it."
- The decision rule — a hard-and-fast rule is code; a judgment call is the agent. When it stalls, walk the chain agent → skills → tools and ask what it actually needs: a login, an env var, an API key.
What changes when the file exists
Brad's own frustration went from about 40% to about 5% once the rules file existed, and the agent now goes off track well under 10% of the time. An operator with no technical background spent two weeks dragging build folders by hand before learning the agent could deploy itself, and now runs her own task board built by her agent. A member front-loads every question before a build and the agent "just goes to work": it wrote chapters 7 through 16 of his book in his voice.
Frequently asked questions
It's still going to make mistakes, isn't it?
Yes. The rules file is one layer of checking, not the last one. What it changes is the rate: every time the agent goes off the rails you add a line, and the list shrinks the error rate from roughly every third time to a few percent. Brad's agent now goes off track well under 10% of the time.
I don't have time to write rules.
It's ten lines. The template is already written; you fill in the blanks. After that, each irritation adds one line, at the moment it happens. That is the whole maintenance.
Isn't it easier to just do it myself?
One operator with no technical background spent two weeks dragging the publish folder in by hand before learning the agent could deploy itself. Anything you can do through an API, the agent could do. The file is how you tell it that once instead of every time.
Which agent does this work with?
It was written for Claude Code. The file is plain text, so any coding agent that reads a file in your project can use it the same way. The five phrases are things you say, so they work anywhere you type.
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