Title: Octet rule
Content:  The octet rule is a chemical rule of thumb that reflects the theory that main-group elements tend to bond in such a way that each atom has eight electrons in its valence shell, giving it the same electronic configuration as a noble gas. The rule is especially applicable to carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and the halogens, but also to metals such as sodium or magnesium. Other rules exist for other elements, such as the duplet rule for hydrogen and helium, or the 18-electron rule for transition metals. The valence electrons can be counted using a Lewis electron dot diagram as shown at the right for carbon dioxide. The electrons shared by the two atoms in a covalent bond are counted twice, once for each atom. In carbon dioxide each oxygen shares four electrons with the central carbon, two (shown in red) from the oxygen itself and two (shown in black) from the carbon. All four of these electrons are counted in both the carbon octet and the oxygen octet, so that both atoms are considered to obey the octet rule.
Title: Octet rule
Content:  The quantum theory of the atom explains the eight electrons as a closed shell with an s2p6 electron configuration. A closed-shell configuration is one in which low-lying energy levels are full and higher energy levels are empty. For example, the neon atom ground state has a full n = 2 shell (2s2&thinsp;2p6) and an empty n = 3 shell. According to the octet rule, the atoms immediately before and after neon in the periodic table (i.e. C, N, O, F, Na, Mg and Al), tend to attain a similar configuration by gaining, losing, or sharing electrons. The argon atom has an analogous 3s2&thinsp;3p6 configuration. There is also an empty 3d level, 
Title: Chemistry
Content:  said to follow the octet rule. However, some elements like hydrogen and lithium need only two electrons in their outermost shell to attain this stable configuration; these atoms are said to follow the duet rule, and in this way they are reaching the electron configuration of the noble gas helium, which has two electrons in its outer shell. Similarly, theories from classical physics can be used to predict many ionic structures. With more complicated compounds, such as metal complexes, valence bond theory is less applicable and alternative approaches, such as the molecular orbital theory, are generally used. See diagram on electronic orbitals.
Title: Electron configuration
Content:  4f14 5d10 6p6||7s2 5f14 6d10 7p6 ; } 7 || Og || 1s2||2s2 2p6||3s2 3p6||4s2 3d10 4p6||5s2 4d10 5p6||6s2 4f14 5d10 6p6||7s2 5f14 6d10 7p6 ; } } Noble gas configuration is the electron configuration of noble gases. The basis of all chemical reactions is the tendency of chemical elements to acquire stability. Main-group atoms generally obey the octet rule, while transition metals generally obey the 18-electron rule. The noble gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, Rn) are less reactive than other elements because they already have a noble gas configuration. Oganesson is predicted to be more reactive due to relativistic effects for heavy atoms. ! Period ! Element ! colspan="7"| Configuration Every system has the tendency to acquire the state of stability or a state of minimum energy, and so 
Title: Octet rule
Content:  octet atom" and "octet theory". The "octet theory" evolved into what is now known as the "octet rule". Walther Kossel and Gilbert N. Lewis saw that noble gases did not have the tendency of taking part in chemical reactions under ordinary conditions. On the basis of this observation, they concluded that atoms of noble gases are stable and on the basis of this conclusion they proposed a theory of valency known as "electronic theory of valency" in 1916: "During the formation of a chemical bond, atoms combine together by gaining, losing or sharing electrons in such a way that they acquire nearest noble gas configuration."
Title: Electron counting
Content: Octet rule is used with Lewis structures for main group elements, especially the lighter ones such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, ; 18-electron rule in inorganic chemistry and organometallic chemistry of transition metals, ; Hückel's rule for the π-electrons of aromatic compounds, ; Polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory for cluster compounds, including transition metals and main group elements such as boron including Wade's rules for polyhedral cluster compounds, including transition metals and main group elements and mixtures thereof. Electron counting is a formalism used for classifying compounds and for explaining or predicting electronic structure and bonding. Many rules in chemistry rely on electron-counting:  Atoms are called "electron-deficient" when they have too few electrons as compared to their respective rules, or "hypervalent" when they have too many electrons. Since these compounds tend to be more reactive than compounds that obey their rule, electron counting is an important tool for identifying the reactivity of molecules.
Title: Valence electron
Content:  The valence shell is the set of orbitals which are energetically accessible for accepting electrons to form chemical bonds. For main-group elements, the valence shell consists of the ns and np orbitals in the outermost electron shell. For transition metals the orbitals of the incomplete (n−1)d subshell are included, and for lanthanides and actinides incomplete (n−2)f and (n−1)d subshells. The orbitals involved can be in an inner electron shell and do not all correspond to the same electron shell or principal quantum number n in a given element, but they are all at similar distances from the nucleus. As a general rule, a main-group element (except hydrogen or helium) tends to react to form a s2p6 electron configuration. This tendency is called the octet rule, because each bonded atom has 8 valence electrons including shared electrons. Similarly, a transition metal tends to react to form a d10s2p6 electron configuration. This tendency is called the 18-electron rule, because each bonded atom has 18 valence electrons including shared electrons.
Title: Valence (chemistry)
Content:  The Rutherford model of the nuclear atom (1911) showed that the exterior of an atom is occupied by electrons, which suggests that electrons are responsible for the interaction of atoms and the formation of chemical bonds. In 1916, Gilbert N. Lewis explained valence and chemical bonding in terms of a tendency of (main-group) atoms to achieve a stable octet of 8 valence-shell electrons. According to Lewis, covalent bonding leads to octets by the sharing of electrons, and ionic bonding leads to octets by the transfer of electrons from one atom to the other. The term covalence is attributed to Irving Langmuir, who stated in 1919 that "the number of pairs of electrons which any given atom shares with the adjacent atoms is called the covalence of that atom". 
Title: 18-electron rule
Content:  The 18-electron rule is a chemical rule of thumb used primarily for predicting and rationalizing formulas for stable transition metal complexes, especially organometallic compounds. The rule is based on the fact that the valence orbitals of transition metals consist of five d orbitals, one s orbital and three p orbitals which can collectively accommodate 18 electrons as either bonding or nonbonding electron pairs. This means that the combination of these nine atomic orbitals with ligand orbitals creates nine molecular orbitals that are either metal-ligand bonding or non-bonding. When a metal complex has 18 valence electrons, it is said to have achieved the same electron configuration as the noble gas in the period. The rule is not helpful for complexes of metals that are not transition metals, and interesting or useful transition metal complexes will violate the rule because of the consequences deviating from the rule bears on reactivity. The rule was first proposed by American chemist Irving Langmuir in 1921.
Title: Octet rule
Content:  it is at considerably higher energy than 3s and 3p (unlike in the hydrogen atom), so that 3s2&thinsp;3p6 is still considered a closed shell for chemical purposes. The atoms immediately before and after argon tend to attain this configuration in compounds. There are, however, some hypervalent molecules in which the 3d level may play a part in the bonding, although this is controversial (see below). For helium there is no 1p level according to the quantum theory, so that 1s2 is a closed shell with no p electrons. The atoms before and after helium (H and Li) follow a duet rule and tend to have the same 1s2 configuration as helium.

Question: the octet rule states that in chemical compounds atoms tend to have the electron configuration of a?
Answer: noble gas.