---
title: "Template, a README that your successor and their agent understand"
description: "A README to fill in, with the prompt that makes your agent write it and a test with a fresh agent, so someone else can install your tool without calling you."
language: en
source: https://coachsteff.live/en/toolkit-sjabloon-readme
---

# Template, a README that your successor and their agent understand

Your tool works, and you want to put it live. Only the explanation is still in your head, and scattered across a chat from last week. This template gives your agent a fixed format for the manual: a README in Markdown. And you get the prompts to let it fill it in. Afterwards you test it with an agent that has never seen your tool before. Count on about fifteen minutes, in the session where you built the tool.

## The skeleton of a good README

You do not have to start from scratch. A README that works answers the questions a new colleague would otherwise email you. And those questions are surprisingly predictable. These are the headings I would use.

```

# [Name of your tool]

## What it does and for whom

## What you need

## Installing and starting

## How it is put together

## Settings and access

## What it does not do

## Known limitations and open questions

## For the agent continuing this work

```

That last heading might seem a bit strange. Yet that part is probably read the most. Your successor asks their AI to adjust something, and that AI starts by reading.

As a Member you get the full template below, with what belongs under each heading. Included is the prompt that makes your agent fill it in. And you get a test with a fresh agent, which shows if your README really works.