Exactly my thoughts... the model should just auto ingest README and CONTRIBUTING when started.

And that makes total sense. Honestly working since a few days with Opus 4.6, it really feels like a competent coworker, but need some explicit conventions to follow … exactly when onboarding a new IC! So i think there is a bright light to be seen: this will force having proper and explicit contribution rules and conventions, both for humans and robots

You could have claude --init create this hook and then it gets into the context at start and resume

Or create it in some other way

    {
      "hookSpecificOutput": {
        "hookEventName": "SessionStart",
        "additionalContext": "<contents of your file here>"
      }
    }

Unlike other content - what you put in here survives compacting

Exactly, it's the same documentation any contributor would need, just actually up-to-date and pared down to the essentials because it's "tested" continuously. If I were starting out on a new codebase, AGENTS.md is the first place I'd look to get my bearings.