journal-write-protocol

journal-write-protocol is a cursor rule for Cursor from FrigateCaptain/ElucidatingYourLLM. It costs 0 tokens per session (834 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A writing protocol for keeping decision, work, fact, and cycle journals separate. It gives the main agent and its helper agents rules for choosing the right file and journal style.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for recording decisions, work performed, known facts, and repeated work cycles in a consistent way.
Why use it?
It prevents mixed-purpose records, duplicate entries, and one helper agent writing unrelated kinds of information into several files.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Written for Cursor: installed under .cursor/. Also seen: mentions subagents.

Good fit It is for recording decisions, work performed, known facts, and repeated work cycles in a consistent way.

Compare 6 cursor rules from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol
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.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/FrigateCaptain/ElucidatingYourLLM

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 journal-write-protocol

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for journal-write-protocol

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/frigatecaptain/elucidatingyourllm/journal-write-protocol.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 834 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00000 $0.00834
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00417
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00167
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00083

Measured 3d ago against content hash 0060342645a1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

journal-write-protocol 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 3d 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/en/.cursor/rules/journal-write-protocol.mdc · 48 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 48 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

This prescribes how the agent and a subagent write to journals. Do not duplicate the public GUIDE of the folder-structure template: roles of the files are already defined there; this is the session ritual.

The protocol applies in two situations as one condition: the parent writes a prompt for a subagent that will write to these files; the parent writes to them itself.

The stop-lists below are a working checklist before a write. Only the owner may extend the list, by a separate decision.

One subagent — one file — one genre

A bundled prompt "write the same thing into DECISION_LOG, FACTS, and WORK_LOG at once" is forbidden. One subagent may write only to one of the files in this rule and only in one genre.

Match the file's purpose

Before writing, the writer asks the structure-template canon questions:

  1. Does this wording fix a norm that could have been otherwise by the owner's will?
  2. Does this wording have an executor and an artifact on disk?
  3. Does this wording describe execution of an already established repeating cycle (what was run, how it ended), not a change to process logic?

Purpose:

  • DECISION_LOG.md — answer to (1) is "yes"; any work, if there was work, goes to WORK_LOG.md.
  • WORK_LOG.md — answer to (2) is "yes"; if the decision is already recorded, put a reference here. In a process folder: a process correction, not a cycle run.
  • FACTS.md — a value-norm, not a story about work and not a decision journal.
  • CYCLE_LOG.md (and the chosen slot name) — answer to (3) is "yes". Cycle execution, not a decision and not a workflow edit.

If the wording does not match the target file, the writer does not put it there and does not stretch it to the nearest genre. The writer returns a refusal: names the file, quotes the wording, and says which journal it belongs to, if it belongs to any.

Stop-list

Do not write in DECISION_LOG.md: created, was created, moved, extracted, completed, check completed, update completed.

Do not write in WORK_LOG.md: approved, decided, accepted, recognized as the norm — unless there is a reference to a decision already recorded in DECISION_LOG.md.

Read the full file on GitHub · 48 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. 3d ago First seen · 48 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 0060342645a1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

journal-write-protocol is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository FrigateCaptain/ElucidatingYourLLM (14 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 834 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 2026-09-05.