---
title: "The most important file in your AI project is not code"
description: "Anyone building with an AI agent notices they have to explain where everything is over and over again. One simple Markdown file solves that. What belongs in it, and why."
language: en
source: https://coachsteff.live/en/het-bestand-dat-je-agent-leest
---

# The most important file in your AI project is not code

When I open a project in a building training, participants usually look at the code first. I then point to another file. A plain text file, a few screens long, without a single line of code. That is the file that determines whether your agent can work independently or comes to ask you something every five minutes.

## The problem everyone knows

Anyone who works on a project with an AI agent for a while knows it. Every new session starts with an explanation. This is the project, this is how it is put together, the files are there, this is how we want it. If you forget something, the agent goes looking for itself, and makes assumptions that you have to correct later.

That is not the agent's fault. It starts every session with an empty memory. It only knows what is in its context.