diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 0ed2b95..6919a09 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -133,11 +133,31 @@ anything that touches the pool, the registry, initialization, or the lock.
 Recent commits use short, imperative, sentence-case subjects, for example
 `Fix refcount leak and stack-trace buffer overflow`. Keep commits focused and
 describe the observable behavior changed. Pull requests should include a brief
-summary, tests run, and any compatibility impact for public macros, generated
-headers, installation paths, or CMake/pkg-config consumers.
+summary, tests run, any compatibility impact for public macros, generated
+headers, installation paths, or CMake/pkg-config consumers, and a link to the
+issue they close.
 
 ## Agent-Specific Instructions
 
+**Outstanding work goes in the issue tracker, not in a file.** Open an issue at
+<https://source.starfort.tech/andrew/libakerror/issues> — `tea issues create
+--repo andrew/libakerror` — naming the file and line, the functional
+consequence, and what closing it would touch. Label it by kind and blast radius
+and leave `status::grooming` on it until its scope and approach are settled.
+**Do not add outstanding items to `TODO.md`**: that file is the record of why
+the handler ladder is a major-version change, why a copied `akerr_ErrorContext`
+is a trap, why validating more inputs lowers branch coverage, and why the
+mutation score is a floor. A description of work still to do goes stale the
+moment somebody does it.
+
+**This library's defects are most often found by its consumers, so make filing
+them cheap.** Three defects in this library — `IGNORE()` leaking a context, the
+un-namespaced `coverage` target, and the missing `akerrorConfigVersion.cmake` —
+were written down in `libakstdlib`'s own notes and never here, so each was
+worked around once per consumer and nobody saw the pattern. A consumer filing
+upstream should cost them one issue instead of one workaround. `libakgl`,
+`libakstdlib` and `akbasic` are all on the same forge.
+
 Do not overwrite uncommitted user changes. Avoid editing generated files in
 `build/`; update `include/akerror.tmpl.h`, `src/error.c`, CMake files, tests,
 or scripts instead.