Arcane Labs — Repository Template

Starting point for new repos at Arcane Labs. Pre-wired with our conventions so a new repo is publishable, reviewable, and AI-legible from commit one.

Use this template

Click Use this template → Create a new repository at the top of this page, or from the CLI:

gh repo create arcanelabsio/<new-repo-name> \
  --template arcanelabsio/repo-template \
  --public \
  --clone
cd <new-repo-name>

Then open SETUP.md and work through the post-clone checklist. It takes about 10 minutes.

What's inside

Path	Why it's here
AGENTS.md	Authoritative guide for AI coding assistants. Cross-tool (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini) source of truth.
CLAUDE.md	Thin pointer that imports AGENTS.md via @AGENTS.md so Claude Code auto-loads the rules.
CONTRIBUTING.md	Contribution guide, Conventional Commits, PR checklist.
SECURITY.md	Vulnerability reporting policy. Points at apps@arcanelabs.info.
SECURITY_MODEL.md	Threat × mitigation × responsibility table. Architectural, not procedural.
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md	Behavior expectations for contributors.
LICENSE	MIT default; swap for AGPL if the repo's posture requires it.
docs/adr/	Architecture Decision Records. 0000-TEMPLATE.md is the ADR template.
.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/	Bug report and feature request forms.
.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md	PR description scaffold with checklist.
.github/workflows/ci.yml	Minimal CI — markdown lint + link check. Add language-specific jobs during setup.
.gitignore	Multi-language defaults. Trim during setup.
SETUP.md	Post-clone checklist. Read this first.

Org conventions this template encodes

• AGENTS.md is authoritative. Not CLAUDE.md, not .cursorrules, not per-tool files. One source, many readers.
• ADRs live in docs/adr/. Numbered, immutable after acceptance, supersede rather than edit.
• SECURITY.md is the policy; SECURITY_MODEL.md is the architecture. Two different documents, two different audiences.
• Conventional Commits, no Co-Authored-By: trailers. feat|fix|chore|docs|refactor|test|ci(<scope>): <subject>.

Maintaining this template

This repo is the source of truth for org-level scaffolding. Changes here don't retroactively reach repos already created from the template — GitHub templates are copy-at-creation, not live-inherited. To update existing repos:

1. Land the change here with a clear commit message.
2. Open a tracking issue in each downstream repo naming the template change and what needs copying over.
3. Downstream repos pull the change opportunistically, not as a sync.

When adding a new convention, land the change here with a clear commit message and let downstream repos pull it in opportunistically.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. This applies to the template itself; repos created from it are free to adopt a different license.