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Improve AGENTS.md: fix misleading and broken content#4105

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HeikoKlare:improve-agents-md
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Improve AGENTS.md: fix misleading and broken content#4105
HeikoKlare wants to merge 1 commit into
eclipse-platform:masterfrom
HeikoKlare:improve-agents-md

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@HeikoKlare

@HeikoKlare HeikoKlare commented Jun 15, 2026

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Summary

  • Remove broken/malformed build command that concatenated two mvn invocations into one invalid command line
  • Remove a mvn clean test example that doesn't work in Tycho projects (tests require mvn verify)
  • Rename "Critical Limitation" section to "Building Individual Bundles" for clarity
  • Add missing instruction on how to include changed source bundles alongside test bundles in the -pl parameter
  • Remove every information about -Pbuild-individual-bundles as it's already defined via .mvn/maven.config
  • Restructure sections: merge scattered Testing/Common Development Commands content into coherent Build System and Development Hints sections; move "Finding test bundles" and JUnit guidelines next to related content
  • Remove incorrect statement that Co-Authored-By trailers fail the Eclipse license check

Background

A key insight driving these changes: when running tests, agents were not including bundles containing modified classes in the -pl parameter alongside the test bundle. This caused tests to run against stale compiled code rather than the changes under test. The instructions now explicitly document the correct pattern:

mvn clean verify -pl :org.eclipse.jface,:org.eclipse.jface.tests

Note

These changes were developed together with a Claude Code agent to verify that the instructions are actually useful and unambiguous from an agent's perspective.

@vogella

vogella commented Jun 15, 2026

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Minor nits:

  • Grammar: "their bundles needs to be added" → "their bundles need to be added."
  • The placeholder-ization (:TEST_BUNDLE_NAME instead of org.eclipse.ui.tests) is a wash. You wisely kept inline org.eclipse.jface.tests examples, so the teaching value survives; concrete-only would have been fine too.

@HeikoKlare HeikoKlare force-pushed the improve-agents-md branch 3 times, most recently from fa31608 to c715ea3 Compare June 15, 2026 18:55
@HeikoKlare

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Thank you for the hints. Both are fully valid. I have updated the PR accordingly, in particular removing the abstract command pattern and just preserving the examples (with proper prose where necessary).

@HeikoKlare HeikoKlare marked this pull request as ready for review June 15, 2026 18:57
@vogella

vogella commented Jun 15, 2026

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Thanks, especially the working examples for the build are important, abstraction here is only hurtful.

@akurtakov

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I am not sure whether it is helpful or just adding noise but with

-Pbuild-individual-bundles
-Pbuild-individual-bundles parameter to most commands shouldn't be needed.

- Remove broken/malformed build command that concatenated two mvn
  invocations into one invalid command line
- Remove a "mvn clean test" example that doesn't work in Tycho projects
  (tests require "mvn verify")
- Rename "Critical Limitation" section to "Building Individual Bundles"
  for clarity
- Add missing instruction on how to include changed source bundles
  alongside test bundles in the -pl parameter
- Remove every information about -Pbuild-individual-bundle as it is
  already defined via .mvn/maven.config
- Restructure sections: merge scattered Testing/Common Development
  Commands content into coherent Build System and Development Hints
  sections; move "Finding test bundles" and JUnit guidelines next to
  related content
- Remove incorrect statement that Co-Authored-By trailers fail the
  Eclipse license check
@HeikoKlare

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I am not sure whether it is helpful or just adding noise but with

-Pbuild-individual-bundles

-Pbuild-individual-bundles parameter to most commands shouldn't be needed.

Great hint, thank you. I wasn't aware of that configuration. I can confirm that passing the profile to maven commands is completely unnecessary. I have removed every information about that from the agents.md.

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3 participants