# Instruction files aren't a map of your code.

Canonical source: https://maguyva.ai/beyond-rules-files

License: text under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/); code samples under [MIT-0](https://opensource.org/license/mit-0); the Maguyva name, logos, brand assets and other code are not covered. Details: [maguyva.ai/license](https://maguyva.ai/license).

CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md tell an agent how to behave. They don't tell it what's in the codebase. Maguyva is the layer that does, over MCP.

A rules file is written by hand: it can't list every caller, import, and definition, and it goes stale as the code moves. Maguyva indexes the repo itself and keeps that map current.

- [Index your first repo](https://app.maguyva.ai/auth/sign-up?plan=free)
- [Read the docs](https://maguyva.ai/docs)

free plan: 3 repos, 50K indexed lines, no card.

## Keep your rules files

*// behavior*

CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md still do their job: conventions, commands, and guardrails.

## Add a queryable index

*// facts*

Semantic, structural, graph, and text search across the real code, over MCP.

## Not a stale snapshot

*// current*

Rebuilds keep the map in sync with the code, not with last month’s docs.

## Rules for behavior. Maguyva for facts.

Index one repo you already know and ask one question you can verify.

01. **Keep your rules files**: CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md stay exactly as they are. Nothing to migrate.
02. **Add Maguyva over MCP**: Index a repo you know, then connect Claude, Codex, Cursor, or any MCP client.
03. **Ask what the docs can’t answer**: What calls this function? What breaks if I change it? Questions a markdown file can’t hold.

## Use rules files for behavior. Use Maguyva for facts.

Start free. Add the codebase context layer your instruction files can't be. No credit card, no sales call.

- [Index your first repo](https://app.maguyva.ai/auth/sign-up?plan=free)
- [Read the docs](https://maguyva.ai/docs)