every agent reads SPACE.md on every run. without it, agents wander. with it, they pick the right work.
what it is
one markdown file in ~/space/SPACE.md. what you’re building, what to focus on, what to skip, what done looks like. plain english.
each run starts cold. SPACE.md is what survives across sessions.
what it isn’t
not a task list. not a backlog. not a PRD. SPACE.md is direction. if it’s more than one page, it’s doing too much.
A minimal example
Pre-product founder:
# SPACE
## What this is
Validating B2B demand for AI-assisted contract review. Target: solo practitioners at firms under 10 people.
## Current focus
10 discovery calls booked this week.
- Synthesize 6 customer interviews → extract top 3 pain points
- Map competitive landscape (Clio, PracticePanther, ContractPodAi)
- Draft cold outreach sequence for solo practitioners
## What to avoid
No building until 10 conversations are done.Engineering founder:
# SPACE
## What this is
B2B invoicing API. Python + FastAPI. Postgres.
## Current focus
Get payment-related paths to 100% test coverage. No new features until coverage is there.
## What to avoid
Don't touch `/api/legacy/`. Migration in progress separately.what makes a good one
be specific. “improve code quality” produces generic refactors. “write tests for all functions in /api/payments/ that have no test file” produces targeted commits.
say what to avoid. agents work on what you don’t protect.
give context, not instructions. write what you’d tell a new contractor on their first day.
update it. stale SPACE.md produces stale commits.
what changes at each stage
pre-product: research and customer work. agents become synthesis and outreach tools.
early product: moving target. highest priority now, what to skip while architecture is unsettled.
live product: reliability and backlog debt. test coverage, dead code, the refactors that piled up.
the file format stays the same. the content changes. that’s the protocol.