House rules

Give every agent your team's conventions the moment it starts — commit style, test commands, folders to stay out of — without pasting them into each prompt. Write them once as a prompt or skill and tick Autoload.

Write the rules

Keep them short and checkable. A prompt file under ~/.beswarm/prompts works:

House rules for this repo:
- Run `pnpm test` and `pnpm lint` before saying you're done.
- Conventional commits. Never commit to main.
- Don't touch `migrations/` or `vendor/`.
- Write reports to `reports/`, not to the chat.

For longer guidance with examples, make it a skill instead: a folder with a SKILL.md under ~/.beswarm/skills.

Tick Autoload

In the TUI, click the prompt in the Prompts panel (or the skill in Skills) and choose Autoload. It shows a ✓ when on.

Autoload items go out as one message to each agent once it has started and is ready for input. See them, and remove them, under Settings → Agents → Auto Load.

Choose who gets them

Under Settings → Agents:

• Auto Load for default agent only limits the rules to your default agent.
• Auto learn BeSwarm's skills also sends BeSwarm's own skill, so agents know how to drive beswarm themselves.

From the CLI

beswarm agent start doesn't send autoload items unless you ask:

beswarm agent start --name api --agent claude --autoload --prompt "Add pagination to /orders"

Leave --autoload off for runs that must start clean, such as evaluations.