2026-08-10-pi-coding-agent-agents-override-md-lets-any-directory-replace-the-operator-s-context

AGENTS.override.md lets any directory replace the operator's context file -- and it loads before project trust is resolved.

Pi now treats AGENTS.override.md as the highest-priority context file for each directory. Per docs/usage.md at v0.84.2: "If a directory contains AGENTS.override.md, Pi loads it instead of AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md from that directory. Context files from other directories still layer normally." The security doc was updated in the same release to name it explicitly among the files exempt from the trust gate: at v0.84.0 and later, docs/security.md reads "Context files such as AGENTS.override.md, AGENTS.md, and CLAUDE.md are loaded regardless of project trust unless context loading is disabled" -- the v0.83.0 text named only AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md. The same doc notes that non-interactive modes (-p, --mode json, --mode rpc) show no trust prompt at all.

Channel: tagged-release. Ancestry: Commit 8ecf8a9883d1cb7c78d07c0fd64d32d6a1fd2c4c ("feat(coding-agent): support AGENTS.override.md (#7681)", authored 2026-08-05T19:24:31Z; PR #7681 merged 2026-08-05T19:24:32Z with that merge_commit_sha). gh api repos/earendil-works/pi/compare/v0.84.0...8ecf8a98 returned status=behind, behind_by=40 -- the commit is an ancestor of the stable v0.84.0 tag. v0.84.0: prerelease=false, draft=false.

Operator consequence: Try it, but audit for it first. The capability is real -- per-directory context override is the clean answer to monorepos where one root AGENTS.md cannot serve every package. The exposure is that a checked-in AGENTS.override.md in a cloned repository displaces whatever guidance you wrote for that directory, and it loads whether or not you trust the project. If you run Pi over repositories you did not author, grep for AGENTS.override.md before the first run, or disable context loading with --no-context-files/-nc. Under headless automation there is no prompt to catch it.

Receipt

• https://github.com/earendil-works/pi/pull/7681