--- title: Giving Agents the Rules Before They Author, Not After description: Most APIs being generated today are authored by AI agents, yet governance is still applied after the fact via linting. The Agent Rule Export tool from API... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/giving-agents-the-rules-before-they-author-not-after-ja03biqfs twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Giving Agents the Rules Before They Author, Not After | daily.dev og:description: Most APIs being generated today are authored by AI agents, yet governance is still applied after the fact via linting. The Agent Rule Export tool from API... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/giving-agents-the-rules-before-they-author-not-after-ja03biqfs og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ja03bIqFS.png og:image:alt: Giving Agents the Rules Before They Author, Not After og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Giving Agents the Rules Before They Author, Not After **[API Evangelist](https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Most APIs being generated today are authored by AI agents, yet governance is still applied after the fact via linting. The Agent Rule Export tool from API Commons addresses this by converting Spectral rulesets into four agent-consumable artifacts: an AGENTS.md governance block with MUST/SHOULD/MAY statements, a compact system-prompt instruction set, a remediation prompt pack keyed by rule ID, and a machine-readable rule digest for self-checking. The key translation maps linter severity levels to imperative language strength. The tool runs entirely in the browser with no backend, supports OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, and Arazzo formats, and integrates with a companion Validator and Governance MCP server. The core argument is that governance should be handed to agents before authoring begins, not enforced as a gate afterward. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How does Agent Rule Export convert Spectral severity levels into agent instructions? Spectral severity maps directly to instruction strength: an error rule becomes a MUST statement, warn and info rules become SHOULD statements, and a hint rule becomes MAY. This translation lets a governance ruleset originally built for post-hoc linting be reshaped into imperative guidance an agent can follow while authoring an API spec, rather than after producing it. _daily.dev surfaces API governance and agent-tooling updates for teams building spec-generation workflows._ ### What artifacts does Agent Rule Export generate from an API governance ruleset? It produces four artifacts: an AGENTS.md governance block with MUST/SHOULD/MAY statements grouped by section, a compact system-prompt instruction set ordered by rule strength, a remediation prompt pack with per-rule fix guidance keyed by rule id, and a machine-readable rule digest checklist stripped of Spectral execution logic. It supports OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, and Arazzo formats and runs entirely in the browser. _Track tooling like this on daily.dev when deciding how to enforce API design standards with coding agents._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Put Governance Where the Agent Can Reach It](https://daily.dev/posts/put-governance-where-the-agent-can-reach-it-k16zuj5yc) · API Evangelist · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Agent Rules is the Missing Link in AI-Powered Development](https://daily.dev/posts/agent-rules-is-the-missing-link-in-ai-powered-development-pie37wuqk) · Liran Tal · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Conversational API Governance Your Agent Can Call](https://daily.dev/posts/conversational-api-governance-your-agent-can-call-xe9sb3wxl) · API Evangelist · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building the Tooling for Consumer API Governance](https://daily.dev/posts/building-the-tooling-for-consumer-api-governance-0zdn4uytm) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#mcp](https://daily.dev/tags/mcp), [#openapi](https://daily.dev/tags/openapi) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/giving-agents-the-rules-before-they-author-not-after-ja03biqfs) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Giving Agents the Rules Before They Author, Not After","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/giving-agents-the-rules-before-they-author-not-after-ja03biqfs","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/giving-agents-the-rules-before-they-author-not-after-ja03biqfs"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T12:03:17.560Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:38:10.875Z","description":"Most APIs being generated today are authored by AI agents, yet governance is still applied after the fact via linting. 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