35-api-contracts

Rules for versioning APIs, keeping request and response formats compatible, and changing data schemas safely. An API is an interface that lets software exchange data.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when designing API versions, typed schemas, error formats, pagination, deprecations, migrations, or JSON and JSONL dataset changes.
Why use it?
They reduce breakage for existing clients when endpoints or returned data change.

Cursor rule

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 rules/aiagentwithdhruv/ai-dev-stack/35-api-contracts
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aiagentwithdhruv/ai-dev-stack
Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 281 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 $0.00281
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00140
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00056
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00028

Measured yesterday against content hash d3568664cdae, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

35-api-contracts 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.

rules/35-api-contracts.mdc · 33 lines

What it actually says

API contract rules:

  • Version APIs explicitly, e.g. /api/v1/, /api/v2/.
  • Never introduce breaking changes to an existing version without deprecation.
  • Document breaking vs non-breaking changes clearly.
  • Use OpenAPI/Swagger specs when the project supports it.

Schema evolution:

  • Add new fields as optional — never remove or rename existing fields in-place.
  • Use explicit migration paths when changing response shapes.
  • Dataset schema changes (JSONL, JSON) must be versioned alongside code.
  • When training data format changes, document the version and conversion script.

Contract expectations:

  • Request and response schemas must be typed (Pydantic, TypeScript interfaces).
  • Error responses must follow a consistent structure across all endpoints.
  • Pagination, filtering, and sorting must use consistent query parameter conventions.
  • All public endpoints must have example request/response in docs or tests.

Deprecation process:

  • Mark deprecated endpoints with headers or response metadata.
  • Set a removal timeline and communicate it.
  • Log usage of deprecated endpoints to track migration.

Do not:

  • Ship breaking API changes without versioning.
  • Return different response shapes from the same endpoint based on hidden logic.
  • Leave undocumented endpoints in production.
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 · 33 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A d3568664cdae

Subscribe to this mod's changes

35-api-contracts is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository aiagentwithdhruv/ai-dev-stack (10 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 281 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.