| name | Agent tools |
| description | Guidelines and restrictions on shell commands and file manipulation tools for AI assistants. |
Agent tools
AI assistants working on the Carbon repository MUST NOT use legacy or
generic UNIX shell search/edit commands when specialized environment tools
exist.
Command line tools restrictions
- DO NOT USE:
cat, less, grep, sed, or other shell utilities for
viewing, searching, or modifying files.
- DO NOT USE:
patch to write and apply patch files.
- DO NOT USE: Writing custom scripts in other languages to circumvent this
limitation.
- DO USE: High-fidelity semantic API tools:
- Viewing: Use
view_file instead of cat / less.
- Searching: Use
grep_search / find_by_name instead of grep /
find.
- Modifying: Use
replace_file_content, multi_replace_file_content,
or write_to_file instead of sed / patch / python edits.
You may only write and run temporary programs to modify source code if no
semantic tool is applicable or when performing complex, systematic transforms
across many codebase directories simultaneously.
Temporary files management
Temporary files and scratchpad test scripts created by the assistant during
analysis, experiments, or debugging:
- MUST reside within the
tmp/ subdirectory under the workspace root.
- MUST be periodically cleaned out and deleted before ending your turn to
preserve a clean git workspace.
