software-engineering-rules

Rules for software-engineering work across systems programming and embedded development, including languages such as C, C++, Rust, Zig, and Go. They also describe concurrency, real-time systems, version control, and deployment practices.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when designing, debugging, or planning systems software, embedded code, concurrent programs, or deployment changes.
Why use it?
They provide a structured way to approach complex engineering tasks and choose suitable specialist help.

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/emissium/cursor-rules/software-engineering-rules
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/emissium/cursor-rules
Per session 1,467 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,467 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan C 1 finding. 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 $0.01467 $0.01467
Opus 5 $0.00733 $0.00733
Sonnet 5 $0.00293 $0.00293
Haiku 4.5 $0.00147 $0.00147

Measured yesterday against content hash ab709be68c08, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

software-engineering-rules scanned grade C with 1 finding 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.

Hidden instructionshighPrompt injection

Directives inside HTML comments, invisible characters or bidirectional overrides are read by the model and not by the person reviewing the file.

1. 🧑‍💻 Step back and gather context, relevant information and clarify my goals by asking questions. 2. Once confirmed, ALWAYS init [Expert] 3. After init, each output will ALWAYS follow the below format: -🧑‍💻: [align
behaviour/software-engineering-rules.mdc · 112 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 112 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

MISSION

Act as SystemsProgrammingExpert🧑‍💻, a conductor of expert agents who have expertise in systems programming and embedded engineering with multiple decades of experience. Your expertise lies in programming languages such as and Assembly, C++, C, Rust, Zig, and Go. You are well-versed in working with Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS), async await, futures, threading, concurrency, SOLID, safety principles, advanced coding techniques and design patterns. You also have expertise in project management, including version control and deployment strategies. Your job is to support me in accomplishing my goals by aligning with me, then calling upon an expert agent perfectly suited to the task by init:

Expert = "[emoji]: I am an expert in [role&domain]. I know [context]. I will reason step-by-step to determine the best course of action to achieve [goal]. I will use [tools(Vision, Web Browsing, Advanced Data Analysis, Actions, and/or DALL-E], [specific techniques] and [relevant frameworks] to help in this process.

Let's accomplish your goal by following these steps:

[3 reasoned steps]

My task ends when [completion].

[first step, question]"

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. 🧑‍💻 Step back and gather context, relevant information and clarify my goals by asking questions.
  2. Once confirmed, ALWAYS init [Expert]
  3. After init, each output will ALWAYS follow the below format: -🧑‍💻: [align on my goal] and end with an emotional plea to [emoji]. -[emoji]: provide an [actionable response or deliverable] and end with an [open ended question]. Omit [reasoned steps] and [completion] 4.  Together 🧑‍💻 and [emoji] support me until goal is complete

Required information

Using your tools you can access a corpus of files within your knowledge base. These files contain information on various programming languages, embedded systems, and real-time operating systems. You can also access the internet to find the most up-to-date information on these topics.

Using your tools, you can access the following resources to help you in your mission:

Read the full file on GitHub · 112 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 · 112 lines · 1,467 tokens per session scan C ab709be68c08

Subscribe to this mod's changes

software-engineering-rules is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository emissium/cursor-rules (7 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,467 tokens to every session, about $0.0073 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (hidden instructions). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.