AI agents and editor app data

Rustic stores its project agent instructions, Codex plugin, and Claude skill in the editor's application data instead of creating .agents, .claude, .mcp.json, AGENTS.md, or CLAUDE.md in your game directory. Gameplay source, scenes, and the generated programming workspace still belong to the game project.

Connect an agent

1. Install Rustic and open your game project in the Rustic editor once. Opening

the project generates its agent information and registers the rustic-workspace MCP server in your user Codex and Claude configuration.

1. Start your agent from the game directory (or a directory below it), and reload

its MCP connections if it was already running. The backend discovers the containing project.engine file. You can also explicitly configure its command as the installed rustic-agent-backend.exe and arguments as ["--project", "C:/Games/MyGame"].

1. Invoke the rustic-workspace skill, or /rustic-workspace in Claude, and ask

it to inspect your project. Call workspace_info first; its project_root identifies the game and agent_directory identifies its stored information.

1. Read instructions through read_agent_file before editing game content.

Use scene_summary with your scene's relative path before changing a scene.

Only small discovery skills, a Claude command, and client registration settings remain in the user profile so agent applications can find the integration. The full skills and plugin live in Rustic app data. No gameplay script attachment or Play session is needed to use these authoring tools.

Read and edit agent information

The following are MCP tool names and copyable argument objects:

{}

Pass that object to workspace_info, then to list_agent_files to list this project's stored instructions and integration files.

Read project instructions with read_agent_file:

{"path":"AGENTS.md"}

Replace instructions with write_agent_file (read the existing content first and include any instructions you want to retain):

{"path":"AGENTS.md","content":"# My game\nKeep gameplay scripts in scripts/. Inspect scenes before editing them.\n"}

Expect a written path in the response. Read it again to confirm the saved text. Instruction and skill edits survive opening the editor again.

All three tools default to scope: "project". To inspect shared user integrations, pass {"scope":"user"} to list_agent_files. For example, read the stored Claude skill with:

{"scope":"user","path":".claude/skills/rustic-workspace/SKILL.md"}

write_agent_file accepts the same scope together with path and content. Shared skill and instruction edits persist; Rustic refreshes client registration and the shared plugin MCP command when the editor starts to follow the installed backend executable.

Storage and migration

On Windows the location is normally %LOCALAPPDATA%/RusticEngine/RusticGameEngine/data/editor/agents. projects/<hash> separates projects using the canonical project path; user holds shared integrations. Trust workspace_info.agent_directory for the actual project location rather than calculating a hash yourself.

Opening an older project transfers Rustic's plugin and Claude skill, including edited files, into app data. Generated AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md move as well. Rustic removes only its own registration from shared project MCP and marketplace files. Other plugins and user-owned instruction files stay in place. If both locations contain different versions of a file, migration keeps the old file in the project as well as the app-data version; compare them before removing either. Empty integration directories are removed after migration.

Limits and troubleshooting

• These tools operate locally for the current OS user. App-data instructions are

not included when sharing or checking in a game directory. Moving the project changes its storage key; copy important instructions through the tools if needed.

• Reads and writes accept UTF-8 text up to 2 MiB. Paths are relative to the selected

agent directory; absolute paths, .., .git, and symlinks that escape it are rejected. Project and shared user scopes do not expose other projects' storage.

• If the tools are missing, reopen the editor and reload your agent's MCP server.

Confirm the installed backend executable exists. You can rerun rustic-agent-backend.exe --install-user-integrations to register it again.

• “The supplied folder is not a readable Rustic project” means the agent started

outside a game project. Set --project to the directory containing project.engine.

• If a file is missing, call list_agent_files and check the scope and relative

path. Ordinary read_file and write_file address game content; agent metadata uses read_agent_file and write_agent_file.

• If migration or saving fails, check permissions on the project and Rustic app

data and the editor's startup error output. Existing files are only removed after their contents have been stored; unrelated agent directories stay intact.