diff --git a/template/AGENTS.md.jinja b/template/AGENTS.md.jinja
index 520fe98..9629432 100644
--- a/template/AGENTS.md.jinja
+++ b/template/AGENTS.md.jinja
@@ -280,6 +280,22 @@ project:
   tailoring is needed. Combine approaches: use `newt-hype` for the common case,
   tuple structs for outliers, and `the-newtype` to unify behaviour when
   defining traits across wrappers.
+- Model mutually exclusive states explicitly. When a state carrier contains
+  correlated booleans, `Option` fields, sentinel values, or fields that must
+  change together, ask whether they are disguising an enum with state-specific
+  payloads.
+- Choose state representation by who selects the transition. When the caller
+  chooses a small, finite sequence of operations, typestate may make illegal
+  call sequences unrepresentable. When input, a parser token, frame, socket
+  event, channel event, or scheduler chooses the next state, prefer a runtime
+  ADT; use an explicit stack or other runtime structure for unbounded state.
+- Encapsulate transitions and mandatory finalization in the state owner.
+  Prefer semantic transition/result enums over mutating several correlated
+  fields and returning flags; consuming methods should perform required
+  cleanup rather than making callers remember multi-step ceremony.
+- Keep genuinely independent booleans as booleans. Introduce an ADT to remove
+  impossible combinations or express domain alternatives, not merely to
+  avoid `bool`.
 - Use `cap_std` and `cap_std::fs_utf8` / `camino` in place of `std::fs` and
   `std::path` for enhanced cross-platform support and capability oriented
   filesystem access.
diff --git a/tests/test_agents_state_machine_guidance.py b/tests/test_agents_state_machine_guidance.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf4fc8c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_agents_state_machine_guidance.py
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+"""Validate conditional state-machine guidance in rendered AGENTS.md files."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from pathlib import Path
+
+import pytest
+from pytest_copier.plugin import CopierFixture
+
+_STATE_MACHINE_GUIDANCE = (
+    "Model mutually exclusive states explicitly",
+    "correlated booleans, `Option` fields, sentinel values",
+    "disguising an enum with state-specific payloads",
+    "Choose state representation by who selects the transition",
+    "prefer a runtime ADT",
+    "explicit stack or other runtime structure for unbounded state",
+    "Encapsulate transitions and mandatory finalization in the state owner",
+    "semantic transition/result enums",
+    "Keep genuinely independent booleans as booleans",
+    "not merely to avoid `bool`",
+)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("use_rust", [False, True])
+def test_state_machine_guidance_is_limited_to_rust_extensions(
+    copier: CopierFixture,
+    tmp_path: Path,
+    *,
+    use_rust: bool,
+) -> None:
+    """Require state-machine guidance exactly when the Rust extension is enabled."""
+    variant = "rust" if use_rust else "python"
+    project = copier.copy(
+        tmp_path / variant,
+        project_name=f"StateMachine{variant.title()}",
+        package_name=f"state_machine_{variant}",
+        use_rust=use_rust,
+    )
+    agents = (project / "AGENTS.md").read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+
+    for fragment in _STATE_MACHINE_GUIDANCE:
+        assert (fragment in agents) is use_rust, (
+            "expected state-machine guidance presence to match the Rust-extension "
+            f"setting for {fragment!r}"
+        )