Catalog Systems File-backed / editor paradigms Cursor Rules

Cursor Rules

https://docs.cursor.com/context/rules

Persistent instructions injected at start of model context: Project Rules (.mdc files in .cursor/rules, scoped Always/Auto Attached/Agent Requested/Manual), global User Rules, and AGENTS.md; legacy .cursorrules deprecated. Codebase indexing is separate from rules.

Active · Verified 2026-10-22 · fresh as of 2026-10-22 · 52 cited facts, 3 with a third-party source · Suggest a correction

At a glance

Type
IDE-embedded code memory vendor fix
Tier
T1
Section
File-backed / editor paradigms
Created
2023-03 (Cursor launched March 2023; .cursorrules file supported from initial release) third-party fix
Latest release
not applicable — not OSS fix
License
not applicable — not OSS fix
GitHub
not applicable — no GitHub repo fix
Pricing
not applicable — not commercial fix
Funding
not applicable — not commercial fix
Freshness
2026-10-22 fix
Layer
agent-infra repo fix
Licensing
commercial vendor fix
Deployment locus
ide vendor fix
Platform vs product
product vendor fix
Accelerator
ai-grant third-party fix
SDK languages
python, rest, typescript vendor fix
Protocols
mcp-client vendor fix
Compliance
iso27001, iso42001, soc2-type2 vendor fix

Memory taxonomy

storage
file
retrieval
injection
persistence
cross-session
update
overwrite
unit
document
governance
user-controllable
conflict
n/a

When to use

Optimised for: simplicity / git-versioned / human-readable

Anti-fit: not for non-coding / non-IDE use cases

Pros & cons

Pros

Rule-file format integrated directly into the IDE that 35M+ developers use; specific selectors (file globs) make rules precise.

Cons

Cursor-only — no portability to Claude Code or other agents; rules can quietly conflict and produce confusing agent behavior.

Claims & capabilities

Cursor at 27.3% market share (2026, behind GitHub Copilot's 41.8%); .cursorrules file is the core behavior-customization mechanism, enabling project-specific instructions read on every session

Technical surface

API surface
not applicable — IDE feature
Backend storage
file (.cursor/rules/)
Deployment
not applicable — not a deployable product
Embedding model
not applicable — rules file
Multi-tenancy
Multi-tenant AWS with logical segregation; separate tenants for privacy vs non-privacy modes; no dedicated single-tenant offering
MCP
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm (no API surface)
A2A
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm
OpenTelemetry
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm

Compare Cursor Rules with…

Alternatives to Cursor Rules → live options ranked by shared design, licence, hosting and MCP support

Similar systems

Other file-backed / editor paradigms in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.

  • Cline .clinerules T2

    Markdown rule files in a workspace .clinerules/ (or .cline/rules/) directory plus global rules in ~/Documents/Cline/Rules; workspace wins on conflict. Per-rule toggles, conditional rules via YAML 'paths' globs, and AGENTS.md / .cursorrules / .windsurfrules are also read.

  • OpenClaw memory T3

    Memory system of the viral OpenClaw personal agent: plain Markdown files (USER.md, MEMORY.md, daily memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md notes, DREAMS.md) with memory_search/memory_get tools, automatic pre-compaction flush and a 'dreaming' sweep that distils daily notes into long-term memory; pluggable engines (LanceDB, Honcho, wiki). spawned an ecosystem of memory plugins (memory-lancedb-pro, gbrain, MemClaw)

  • AGENTS.md T1

    Open Markdown 'README for agents' at repo root; nested files in subprojects take precedence (closest wins). Holds build/test commands, conventions and PR rules. Stewarded by the Agentic AI Foundation (Linux Foundation); supported by Codex, Jules, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Devin/Windsurf and others.

  • Aider CONVENTIONS.md / .aider.conf.yml T2

    CONVENTIONS.md (any name, loaded via --read or read: in config); .aider.conf.yml (home / git-root / cwd, last wins); .aiderignore (gitignore-syntax).

  • Basic Memory T3

    Local-first MCP memory where each memory is a Markdown note with observations and wikilink relations that form a traversable knowledge graph, indexed with SQLite (optional Postgres vectors), plus an optional hosted cloud. widely used MCP memory server with a paid cloud tier

  • CLAUDE.md T1

    CLAUDE.md files (managed, user, project, local scopes) concatenated into context at session start, with @imports and path-scoped .claude/rules/; complemented by Claude-written auto memory (MEMORY.md index). Project-root file re-injected after /compact.

Sources (51 cited facts, 3 third-party)

Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).