rule-author

Rule author

Trigger

Capturing a persistent constraint or convention as a rule.

Is it actually a rule?

A rule is a standing constraint that should color behavior with no steps to run ("never alter a column type in place"). If it's a procedure with a beginning and end, use skill-author instead. If it's genuinely cross-tool baseline behavior (stack, voice, naming), put it in AGENTS.md, not an .mdc.

Choose the type (frontmatter)

Want	alwaysApply	description	globs
Always on (use sparingly)	true	—	—
Auto-attach on matching files	false	—	["glob"]
Agent pulls in when relevant	false	required, specific	omitted
Manual via @mention	false	omitted	omitted

description is required for agent-requested rules and drives selection — make it specific.

Body conventions

• Keep it under 500 lines; split large rules into composable ones.
• Reference canonical files (@path) instead of pasting code that will go stale.
• Write like a clear internal doc: focused, actionable, concrete examples.
• Don't: dump a whole style guide (use a linter), document common tools the agent knows, or add edge cases that rarely apply. Add a rule only when the agent repeats a mistake.

Workflow

1. Confirm it's a rule (not a skill / AGENTS.md line). 2. Pick the type. 3. Write tight frontmatter + body. 4. Add a cursor-rule entry to registry.json. 5. Run loadout doctor.

Pairs with

• skills: skill-author, learning-from-chats
• docs: external-practices