When an agent seems to ignore your rules, the cause is often two rules that disagree rather than a file that's too long. This post shows why fixing one conflict usually helps more than cutting lines.
Originally published on clogmeter.vercel.app.
When AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, Cursor rules, and skills all load, the agent does not get “more guidance” — it gets three copies of the same rule and often one quiet contradiction. Always/never pairs that disagree burn tokens twice and teach the model to hedge.
Quick fix: open every instruction file side by side and search for the same verb (“never commit”, “always run tests”). Keep one canonical line in a single source of truth; delete or @-import the rest. Then weigh what is left.
If you want to see where your own AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or Cursor rules spend tokens, I built a free browser-only checker that also flags duplicates and always/never conflicts: Clogmeter.
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