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AGENTS.md for an AI invoice and document reader

Pulls fields out of invoices, receipts or forms and flags the ones a person should check. Paste this section into AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, and Claude Code, Cursor or Codex will build the AI parts so you can see which results users had to redo, and fix those first.

AGENTS.md
## AI features: AI invoice and document reader

Pulls fields out of invoices, receipts or forms and flags the ones a person should check.

### Steps
1. **extract**: read the document into fields as JSON, with a confidence per field
2. **review flag**: decide whether a person should check it before it's saved

### Every AI call
- Call models only from the server. API keys never reach the browser.
- Give every AI result a row in `ai_results`: id, user_id, feature, step, model, prompt_version, settings, input reference, output reference, cost_usd, latency_ms, created_at.
- Never overwrite a result. A retry or regeneration is a new row with `retry_of` set to the earlier result's id.
- Prompts live in versioned files (`prompts/<feature>/<step>/v<N>.md`). Don't edit a version that has shipped; add a new one.

### What counts as "worked first time" in this app
Record these as rows in `ai_events` (result_id, user_id, event, created_at), written by the server, not by a browser analytics script.

Worked:
- the fields were saved without edits
- the record was exported or paid

Needed a redo:
- someone edited a field (record which field, old and new value)
- the upload was retried
- the reviewer rejected the document

Where users give no signal: Each week, check 25 documents that were saved without review, field by field.

### Before changing a prompt or a model
1. Build a test set from the last 150 real documents, with the fields as people finally saved them.
2. Replay it on the change. Compare how often results work first time and the cost per result that works, step by step.
3. Ship to 10% of users behind a flag. Keep it only if users redo less and the cost per result that works doesn't rise.
4. Write down what changed and why in `prompts/CHANGELOG.md`.

### Cost guardrails
- A spending cap per user per day, checked before each AI call.
- Rate limits on every AI endpoint.
- Retries capped at 2, each with a timeout.
- at most 20 pages per document
- at most 100 documents per user per day
- scanned pages sent as images, not as recognised text

What each part is for

Every AI call
One row per result, never overwritten, tied to its prompt version and model. Without it, nobody can say which change broke what.
What counts as worked first time
The signals an invoice reader gives when a result worked or needed a redo, recorded by the server. This is the number to improve.
Before changing a prompt or a model
Replay real requests first, then ship to a slice of users. Your agent stops changing prompts by feel.
Cost guardrails
Caps and limits so one heavy user or a retry loop can't run up the bill.

Run the AI launch checklistWork out your real cost per result

Questions

Where do I put this?

In AGENTS.md at the root of your repo; Codex, Cursor and most coding agents read it. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md, so paste it there too, or have CLAUDE.md point to AGENTS.md.

Why does it say what counts as a redo for an invoice reader?

Because that's how you find out whether the AI worked without asking users to rate it. Each kind of app shows a failed result differently: asking again, editing, regenerating, overriding. Recording those as events, tied to the result's prompt version and model, is what lets your agent fix the cases that fail and prove the fix worked.

Do I need evals for this?

Not to start. Most of it runs on what users already do. Each week, check 25 documents that were saved without review, field by field.

Other kinds of AI app