What this register is
Every row below names a filename, not a new file format.
TODO.md is still a task list. AGENTS.md is still
the instructions you hand a coding agent. Nothing about the body of either
file changes, and neither is ours to change: AGENTS.md belongs
to the Agentic AI Foundation, and markdown task lists belong to everyone.
What this register adds is three keys of frontmatter, and that is the entire substance of it:
---
$id: https://todo.md.org.ai/TODO.md
$type: ItemList
$context: https://schema.org.ai
---| Key | What it says |
|---|---|
$id | The file's own address — the URL another document cites when it means this file. |
$type | What the file is, named in a vocabulary that already has a word for it. |
$context | Where that vocabulary lives. Always https://schema.org.ai here. |
Frontmatter is inert to a markdown renderer: GitHub, a static-site generator and a terminal pager all skip it. A file that carries these three keys is still an ordinary file of its kind for every tool that has never heard of this register — which is the only reason it is safe to add them.
The types are looked up, not invented. ItemList and
TechArticle already exist in the vocabulary at
schema.org.ai; a register that coins a
word for every file it touches is a register nobody else can read.
The register
-
TODO.md
A list of things to be done — the GFM task list a repository already keeps.todo.md.org.ai ·
$type: ItemListServed -
AGENTS.md
Project-specific instructions for a coding agent. The format is the Agentic AI Foundation's; the frontmatter is the addition.agents.md.org.ai ·
$type: TechArticleServed - AUTH.md How a caller proves who it is to this project.no page yet Placeholder
- CONTEXT.md What a reader needs to know before reading anything else here.no page yet Placeholder
- SKILL.md A capability an agent can be handed, and when to reach for it.no page yet Placeholder
- DESIGN.md Why this is shaped the way it is.no page yet Placeholder
About the placeholders
The four rows marked placeholder are filenames we expect to want and have not written. They are listed so the shape of the register is visible, not because anything is scheduled. There is no date attached to any of them, and a placeholder that is never filled in will be deleted rather than left standing.
Status — read this before citing anything here
This register, and the frontmatter addition it describes, is our own — written in this estate, not handed down by anyone. It is new. It carries no version number, because there is nothing yet to have changed from, and version numbers on a two-week-old convention are theatre.
No adoption is claimed. No count of implementers is given here, because the honest count is the one we would rather not print. If that changes, this paragraph changes with it.
There is no 1.0 and there will not be one until the shape has survived people other than its authors trying to break it. Until then every page in this register is a proposal published so that it can be broken.