I read the agentic mode is "better" so to keep the agent aligned with my project's architecture, I’ve manually built 7 dense Markdown files that serve as the system instructions for the project. I require Gemini to update these files as we implement features.
gemini.md (instructs gemini to read the other md files and handle updating) project_overview.md, architecture.md, features.md, database.md, api.md, security.md
Each file is between 500–1,500 words so I’m concerned if f this is the right way to go. There seems to be no consensus on context file best practices. I’m seeing strong arguments for both minimalist, lean instructions and dense, project-wide specs. Honestly, the proper usage/prompting patterns of LLM's seems to be comparable to reading horoscopes, everyone goes by gut-feeling with the most cited source of truth being the confirmation bias.
How are you using .md context files in your workflow?
There are great videos on Skills, Subagents etc. I'd give them a watch.
Context locality is a big one https://bradystroud.dev/blogs/context-locality
Heres another tip https://bradystroud.dev/blogs/show-ai-the-bug