The Complete SOUL.md Template Guide — Give Your AI Agent a Personality

TL;DR Your AI coding assistant is a blank slate. SOUL.md changes that. It's a single markdown file that defines who your AI is — its personality, communication style, expertise, and boundaries. Drop it in your project root, and every AI tool that reads system-level markdown (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw, and more) instantly adopts that persona. This guide gives you copy-paste templates , advanced examples, and the full Soul Spec structure so you can get started in under 5 minutes. What is SOUL.md? SOUL.md is a plain markdown file that lives in your project root (or home directory). It tells your AI assistant: Who it is — name, role, personality traits How to communicate — tone, language, verbosity What it knows — domain expertise, tech stack context What it should and shouldn't do — boundaries, safety rules Think of it like a .env file, but for personality instead of secrets. Why does this matter? Without a SOUL.md, every conversation starts from zero. Your AI doesn't rememb