Agent Guidelines for dist-m4ri

Interaction Rules

• No unsolicited code edits on questions: When the user asks a question, requests an explanation, discusses architecture, or asks for advice, provide a clear, concise answer first. Do NOT edit code or modify repository files without explicit instructions from the user to proceed.
• Clarifying questions: if in doubt about the prompt meaning or intent, ask clarifying questions. Better ask early to save time.

Code and Formatting Standards

• Line Length: Wrap all lines in source code (C, Python), documentation (Markdown), workflow files (YAML), and test scripts to a maximum of 120 columns.
• Documentation Integrity: Maintain documentation integrity. Keep comments, docstrings, and help messages up-to-date and consistent between the C binary and the Python library.

Temporary files

• Reports, scripts, and intermediate results should all be created in the scratch/ directory within the repository. You can also remove or update those files when needed.

Version Management

• Synchronized Versioning: When the version is incremented, ensure it is updated consistently across all four project metadata files:
  1. CITATION.cff (version: vX.Y.Z)
  2. Doxyfile (PROJECT_NUMBER = X.Y.Z)
  3. src/util_io.h (#define DIST_M4RI_VERSION "X.Y.Z")
  4. dist_m4ri.py (__version__ = "X.Y.Z")
• Compatibility: Ensure binary CLI arguments and Python CLI arguments remain backward-compatible, and cache file versioning ("__version__") is preserved. If an Option must be disabled in Python CLI, it should issue a clear warning as disabled to stderr, and be otherwise ignored.