Creating Rules For Agents

Speaker: Maggie — Engineer at Warp

1. Starting with Agent Mode Evals

I’m currently adding Evals (short for evaluations) to test a new feature I’ve been building.

Warp quickly surfaces helpful context — like notebooks and internal docs — written by teammates on how to run Evals. This makes onboarding onto new tasks fast and collaborative.

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2. Adding a Rust Syntax Eval

Next, I want to add an Eval that tests for Rust syntax errors. So I ask Warp to update the Dockerfile to include Rust.

However, the generated Dockerfile installs Rust differently than I wanted. It also includes gcc and python via a single apt-get line, which doesn’t follow our internal conventions.

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3. Stashing Changes & Creating a Rule

Instead of fixing this manually every time, I decide to stash the current changes and create a reusable Rule that encodes our convention:

Rule Example: “Always use apt-get to install packages and follow the same pattern used for installing Python and GCC.”

This way, future sessions — and even other teammates — can automatically apply the same standard.

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4. Applying the Rule

Now, I just ask Warp’s Agent Mode to try again!

Warp re-runs the request, follows the new rule, and correctly adds Rust with the right syntax. The code now matches our conventions.