cursor-handbook

The open-source rules engine for Cursor IDE — 110 rules, agents, and skills that turn your AI into a senior engineer who follows your standards, knows your codebase, and never wastes a token.

Stop teaching your AI the same things every session. cursor-handbook gives Cursor permanent memory of your standards, security policies, and workflows — across every project, every team member, every prompt.

If cursor-handbook helps you, consider giving it a ⭐ — it helps others discover it.

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Table of Contents

• Ways to use
• The Problem
• Before vs After
• Who is this for?
• How It Works
• Quick Start
• Documentation

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Ways to use cursor-handbook

Pick the option that fits your workflow:

Option	Best for
1. Clone & copy	Use the full rules engine in your repo. Clone this repo, copy the .cursor folder into your project, then edit project.json and tailor rules/agents/skills to your stack.
2. Add from GitHub (Cursor UI)	Use rules, skills, or agents without cloning. In Cursor IDE go to Settings → Rules / Skills / Agents, click Add new → Add from GitHub, and paste this repo’s clone URL. Add only what you need.

| 3. Fork & customize | Maintain your own version. Fork this repo, adapt the .cursor files for your team or product, then use that fork across your projects or share it internally. | | 4. Pick and choose | Use individual components. Download only the production-ready, generic rules, skills, agents, commands, or hooks you need from this repo and drop them into your existing .cursor setup. |

Improvements welcome. If you want to add or improve rules, skills, hooks, agents, or commands, see CONTRIBUTING.md and open an issue or PR.

Forking? Replace girijashankarj with your GitHub org/username in badges, clone URLs, scripts/setup-cursor.sh, .github/CODEOWNERS, and docs before pushing.

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The Problem

Every time you open Cursor IDE, your AI assistant starts from zero. It doesn't know your:

• Code conventions and architecture patterns
• Security policies (and happily hardcodes your API keys)
• Testing thresholds (and runs the full 100K-token test suite when you just wanted a type check)
• Handler patterns, naming conventions, or folder structure

You end up repeating yourself, burning tokens, and fixing the same mistakes. cursor-handbook fixes this permanently.

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Before vs After

Before cursor-handbook	After cursor-handbook
AI hardcodes API keys	Security rules block it
AI runs full test suite (~100K tokens)	Uses type-check (~10K) or single-file tests
You repeat conventions every session	Rules remember them — always on
Inconsistent code across team	One rules engine, one standard
No guardrails on expensive ops	Hooks warn or block dangerous commands

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Who is this for?

Audience	Benefit
Solo developers	Consistent AI behavior without repeating yourself every session
Teams	Shared standards; everyone gets the same guardrails and conventions
Enterprises	Security, compliance, and token efficiency built in from day one

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How It Works

graph TB
    subgraph INPUT ["Your Prompt"]
        A[Developer types a prompt in Cursor]
    end

    subgraph HOOKS_PRE ["Pre-Processing Hooks"]
        B[context-enrichment.shInjects project context]
        C[shell-guard.shBlocks dangerous commands]
    end

    subgraph ENGINE ["cursor-handbook Engine"]
        D[29 RulesAlways-applied standards]
        E[34 AgentsSpecialized AI assistants]
        F[21 SkillsStep-by-step workflows]
        G[14 CommandsQuick actions]
    end

    subgraph CONFIG ["Project Settings"]
        H[project.jsonYour project settings]
    end

    subgraph HOOKS_POST ["Post-Processing Hooks"]
        I[post-edit-check.shValidates changes]
        J[auto-format.shFormats code]
        K[coverage-check.shVerifies thresholds]
    end

    subgraph OUTPUT ["AI Response"]
        L[Code that follows YOUR standardswith 30%+ fewer tokens]
    end

    A --> B --> C --> D
    D --> E & F & G
    H -.->|configures| D & E & F & G
    E & F & G --> I --> J --> K --> L

    style INPUT fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#e94560,color:#fff
    style HOOKS_PRE fill:#16213e,stroke:#0f3460,color:#fff
    style ENGINE fill:#0f3460,stroke:#533483,color:#fff
    style CONFIG fill:#533483,stroke:#e94560,color:#fff
    style HOOKS_POST fill:#16213e,stroke:#0f3460,color:#fff
    style OUTPUT fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#00d2ff,color:#fff

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What's Inside

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
mindmap
  root((cursor-handbook110 Components))
    Rules — 29
      Architecture — 3
      Backend — 6
      Frontend — 4
      Security — 3
      Database — 3
      Cloud — 3
      Testing — 3
      DevOps — 3
      Core — 1
    Agents — 34
      Architecture — 3
      Backend — 7
      Frontend — 4
      Testing — 4
      Database — 2
      Security — 3
      Cloud — 3
      DevOps — 3
      Business — 2
      AI/ML — 1
      Docs — 1
      Platform — 1
    Skills — 21
      Backend — 4
      Frontend — 2
      Testing — 2
      Database — 3
      Cloud — 3
      DevOps — 4
      Docs — 3
    Commands — 14
    Hooks — 12
    Templates — 9

Layer	Count	What It Does	How It's Triggered
Rules	29	Enforces coding standards on every AI interaction	Automatically — always on
Agents	34	Specialized assistants for complex tasks	On demand — `/age