update

A command that changes an existing coding-agent assistant’s mission, scope, rules, or workflow. It protects built-in system commands such as /hire, /fire, /update, /list, and /define from being changed this way.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to add requirements, checklists, technologies, or workflow steps to an existing assistant command.
Why use it?
It lets developers refine an assistant without manually editing its command file and prevents accidental changes to protected commands.

Command for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/janumansky/startup/update
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JanUmansky/startup

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 573 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00573
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00287
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00115
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00057

Measured yesterday against content hash c24d67db6e6a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

update scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/commands/update.md · 89 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 89 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/update — Update an existing assistant command

Definitions:

  • COMMANDS_DIR = the folder where command markdown files live.
  • ROSTER_FILE = COMMANDS_DIR + "/_roster.md"
  • Command file path = COMMANDS_DIR + "/.md"

Goal: Update an existing assistant’s mission/scope/rules/workflow based on the user’s input.

Input

User message: "/update " Example: "/update bob add OWASP checklist and enforce zod validation on all new routes"

Reserved Names (Protected)

The following names are system commands and cannot be updated via /update:

  • hire, fire, update, list, define, _roster

If the user attempts to update a reserved name, reject the request with a clear error:

❌ Cannot update <name> — this is a protected system command. Only hired assistants can be modified with /update.

Steps

  1. Parse assistant name + requested changes.
  2. Validate the name is not reserved:
    • Check against reserved names: hire, fire, update, list, define, _roster
    • If reserved, reject immediately with the error message above
    • Do NOT proceed with modification
  3. Open the command file and read current Mission/Scope/Rules.
  4. Apply updates with minimal disruption:
    • Update Mission if needed
    • Adjust In scope / Out of scope
    • Extend checklists and operating rules
    • Update interfaces if target area changed
  5. If the one-line mission changed materially, update the entry in ROSTER_FILE too.
  6. Summarize the diff with structured output.

Output Format

Structure the response with emojis and tables:


📝 Summary

One sentence: what was updated.

Example: Updated dinesh with OWASP security checklist.


📁 Files Modified

File Location
dinesh.md .cursor/commands/
_roster.md .cursor/commands/ (if mission changed)

🔄 Changes

Section Before After
Operating Rules 4 items 8 items (+OWASP checklist)
In Scope validation, auth validation, auth, security audits

Read the full file on GitHub · 89 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 89 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A c24d67db6e6a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

update is a command published in the GitHub repository JanUmansky/startup (2 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 573 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.