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Charlie is designed to adapt to your repo and workflow. You can customize how Charlie plans, writes, and reviews code—and even have Charlie run safe automations on a schedule.
Charlie’s instructions and playbooks are conceptually similar to repo rule files like AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, and .cursor/rules, but tailored to Charlie’s capabilities and tooling—they let you customize how Charlie behaves in your repo.

Instructions

Repo-specific rules and expectations that shape planning, coding, and reviews. Think policies and standards.

Playbooks

Small, step-by-step recipes for repeatable tasks. Loaded automatically when relevant to a task.

Proactive behaviors (beta)

Let Charlie execute selected playbooks automatically (e.g., Sentry triage, dead-code cleanup) and open PRs/issues for you.

Configuration

Repository-level config and environment variables that enable Charlie to run your tools and checks.

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Quickstart

  • Create concise instruction files under .charlie/instructions/*.md—one topic per file.
  • Add one high‑value playbook under .charlie/playbooks/*.md.
  • (Optional) Keep directory‑scoped rules near code with AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or .cursor/rules/*.mdc.
  • Sanity‑check: open a tiny PR that violates an instruction (Charlie should flag it) and run a small task (Charlie should auto‑select the playbook).

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Instructions vs. Playbooks

Instructions
  • What: repo‑specific rules and conventions that guide Charlie’s behavior and outputs.
  • Where: .charlie/instructions/*.md (global). Charlie also reads AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .cursor/rules/*.mdc, and root .cursorrules.
  • When: applied during planning, coding, and reviews.
  • Use cases: coding style, commands, review standards, naming, error handling, logging, commit/PR norms.
See the full Instructions guide for examples and a template.
Playbooks
  • What: concise, step‑by‑step recipes for recurring tasks.
  • Where: .charlie/playbooks/*.md (one per file; first H1 is the title).
  • When: loaded when relevant to the task (never during PR review).
  • Use cases: repeatable workflows and checklists with exact steps and guardrails.
See the full Playbooks guide for structure and examples.
Why both? Instructions define the rules of the road; playbooks are actionable how‑tos loaded contextually.

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Recognized rule files

Charlie reads AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .cursor/rules/*.mdc, and a root .cursorrules alongside .charlie/instructions/*.md as instruction sources. When both exist and collide, .charlie/instructions/*.md take priority. If Charlie must trim for the token budget, non‑.charlie rule files are trimmed first; .charlie/instructions/*.md are the last to be trimmed.
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