00-read-agent-context-first

00-read-agent-context-first is a cursor rule for Cursor from cam-douglas/agent-instructions. It costs 105 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A startup procedure for coding agents that defines which project context files to read before doing substantial work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when beginning an agent session or handling a new task that requires reading project instructions and running the project's bootstrap script.
Why use it?
It helps the agent follow the project's instructions and background instead of starting with missing context.

Cursor rule 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 rules/cam-douglas/agent-instructions/00-read-agent-context-first
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cam-douglas/agent-instructions

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for 00-read-agent-context-first

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/cam-douglas/agent-instructions/00-read-agent-context-first.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/cam-douglas/agent-instructions/00-read-agent-context-first)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/cam-douglas/agent-instructions/00-read-agent-context-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/cam-douglas/agent-instructions/00-read-agent-context-first.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 105 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 105 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
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 $0.00105 $0.00105
Opus 5 $0.00053 $0.00053
Sonnet 5 $0.00021 $0.00021
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00011

Measured 4d ago against content hash ad98ed5fcf7c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

00-read-agent-context-first 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 4d ago.

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/rules/00-read-agent-context-first.mdc · 11 lines

What it actually says

On every new user message that requires substantive work, first read /AGENTS.md, then read its complete core per-turn set before any other tool or substantive response.

At the beginning of a new agent session, read /BOOTSTRAP.md and run the resolved /scripts/bootstrap.sh before project work.

Session-start reads do not satisfy later turns. A pure acknowledgment with no tools or project consequence is the only exception.

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. 4d ago First seen · 11 lines · 105 tokens per session scan A ad98ed5fcf7c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

00-read-agent-context-first is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository cam-douglas/agent-instructions (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 105 tokens to every session, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. 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.