Deep Research: Cross-Platform Portability

Once you run a business out of a git repo with an agent reading it, you have to ask which parts survive changing tools.

It splits cleanly in two. Layer one is the brain and it travels everywhere. Reference files, research, decisions, issues, git history. Every AI tool reads Markdown out of a repo, so this layer is already portable and always was.

Layer two is the convenience. Slash commands, progressive loading, plugin marketplaces. That layer belongs to one tool and there is no practical way to make it behave the same in Cursor or Codex.

Instruction files are the funny middle. CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md, .cursor/rules. Different filenames, identical Markdown inside. AGENTS.md is in 60,000 repos and every major tool has adopted it except Claude Code.

GitHub issues turned out to be the real cross-platform execution layer. Copilot, Claude, and Codex will all take an assigned issue, plan the work, and open a pull request. An issue is plain text in a git-hosted system, so it works anywhere. Worth knowing that people can hide instructions inside an issue and quietly take control of whichever agent reads it.

This is what Data sovereignty for individuals looks like when you make it concrete. Own the Markdown and you own the part that matters.

Full Deep Research: Cross-Platform Portability Landscape for AI Business Tools