Getting Started

Terso is a CLI that keeps your AI coding agents on the same page as you. The fastest path is offline: write project rules in AGENTS.md and let terso emit compile them into the config files each agent expects.

Install

npm install -g terso-cli

Or use without installing:

npx terso-cli emit

Quick start

1. Initialize in your project

cd ~/projects/my-app
terso init

This creates a .terso/ directory and scaffolds an AGENTS.md at the project root if you don't already have one.

2. Edit AGENTS.md

Write your project rules once — conventions, commands, "don'ts". This is the single source of truth.

3. Compile to per-agent config files

terso emit

Output:

  create   CLAUDE.md
  create   .cursorrules
  create   .github/copilot-instructions.md

Emitted 3 file(s) from AGENTS.md (0 unchanged).

Each emitted file starts with a marker comment so re-running emit is safe and won't clobber files you maintain by hand.

4. Your AI agents read it

Cursor reads .cursorrules. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md. Copilot reads .github/copilot-instructions.md. They all get the same instructions, compiled from one source.

Going further

Want richer project memory — captured decisions, cross-project search, shared ops? Connect to Omnus and use terso sync / capture / search. See Standalone vs Connected.