Integrating ARE into Your Team Workflow: CI/CD, Hooks, and Automation

Session Hooks: Zero-Effort Maintenance

ARE ships with three hooks that run automatically during AI sessions:

• are-check-update.js (SessionStart): Checks npm for newer ARE versions in the background, caches results. Pin a team version by committing .claude/ARE-VERSION to your repo.
• are-context-loader.js (PostToolUse): Injects parent AGENTS.md into context whenever your AI reads a file. Your assistant automatically understands the broader architecture.
• are-session-end.js (SessionEnd): Detects git changes via git status --porcelain and runs are update --quiet in the background. Documentation stays fresh without manual intervention.

All hooks use detached spawning (child.unref()) so they never block your session. Disable with ARE_DISABLE_HOOK=1 or hook_enabled: false in config.

CI/CD Integration

Add documentation validation to your pipeline. A minimal GitHub Actions example:

- name: Check docs are current
  run: |
    npx are update --dry-run
    if git status --porcelain | grep -q '\.sum$\|AGENTS\.md$'; then
      echo "Docs out of date. Run 'npx are update' locally."
      exit 1
    fi

ARE's exit codes map cleanly to CI: 0 (success), 1 (partial failure), 2 (total failure).

Shared Configuration

Commit .agents-reverse-engineer/config.yaml to standardize behavior: exclusion patterns, concurrency limits, model selection, and compression ratios. Everyone generates consistent documentation.

For monorepos, either run ARE per-workspace or use aggressive exclusion patterns to scope discovery.

The Programmatic API

For custom integrations, import from agents-reverse-engineer/core (@beta):

import { updateDocumentation, readConfig } from 'agents-reverse-engineer/core';
const config = await readConfig(process.cwd());
await updateDocumentation(process.cwd(), config);

The API exposes 60+ symbols for discovery, generation, orchestration, and telemetry.

Team Conventions

Agree on basics: commit generated docs or gitignore them, regeneration cadence (per-session via hooks, weekly, or CI gate), and who reviews output. Use AGENTS.local.md for team-specific instructions that survive regeneration.

Series Wrap-Up

Over twelve articles, we've covered ARE from installation through advanced usage:

npx agents-reverse-engineer@latest

ARE is MIT-licensed and open source at github.com/GeoloeG-IsT/agents-reverse-engineer.

The goal isn't perfect documentation. It's documentation that's good enough, fresh enough, and automatic enough to actually help.