PRODUCTION SCENARIO
A repository already maintains AGENTS.md for other coding agents. The team wants Claude Code to follow it and to add two Claude-only rules, without copying the shared content into a second file.
What is the recommended approach?
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Answer: Import AGENTS.md with @AGENTS.md in CLAUDE.md, then add the Claude-only rules
Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md and not AGENTS.md, and a CLAUDE.md that imports AGENTS.md with @path keeps one source while leaving room for Claude-specific rules below the import. The symlink is documented too, but it makes the two names one file, so the docs recommend it only when there is nothing Claude-specific to add. A user-scope copy duplicates the shared content on one machine. Import parsing skips code spans, so a backticked path never loads.
Official Source: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory ↗