api-standards

A set of rules for designing, implementing, and documenting REST APIs, which are web interfaces organized around standard HTTP requests.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to check PHP, JavaScript, and TypeScript API code for standard methods, documented endpoints, error responses, and properly formatted output.
Why use it?
It catches inconsistent HTTP methods, missing error handling, undocumented endpoints, and responses that are not formatted as JSON.

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/ivangrynenko/cursorrules/api-standards
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ivangrynenko/cursorrules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 602 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 $0.00602
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00301
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00120
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00060

Measured yesterday against content hash dccbab1b36b8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

api-standards 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/rules/api-standards.mdc · 49 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 49 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Enhanced API Standards

Ensures consistent API design, documentation, and implementation best practices across PHP, JavaScript, and TypeScript files.

Rule Details

  • Name: enhanced_api_standards

  • Description: Enforce enhanced API design, implementation, and documentation standards

Filters

  • file extension pattern: \\.(php|js|ts)$

Enforcement Checks

  • Conditions:
    • pattern @api\\s+(?!GET|POST|PUT|DELETE|PATCH|OPTIONS|HEAD) – Use standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, OPTIONS, HEAD) for API endpoints.
    • pattern function\\s+[a-zA-Z]+Api\\s*\\([^)]*\\)\\s*\\{[^}]*\\} – negated (?s)(throw new \\w+Exception|return\\s+(?:\\d{3}|4\\d\\d|5\\d\\d)) – Ensure API functions handle or return errors appropriately using exceptions or HTTP status codes.
    • pattern (?<!@api\\s+)(?<!\\s+returns\\s+)(?<!\\s+throws\\s+)[A-Z]{3,}(?!\\s+) – HTTP methods should be prefixed with '@api' for documentation purposes.
    • pattern \\bresponse\\b(?![^;]*\\.json\\() – Ensure all API responses are properly formatted, preferably as JSON.

Suggestions

  • Guidance: API Best Practices:
  • HTTP Methods: Use proper HTTP methods for operations (GET for retrieval, POST for creation, etc.).
  • Status Codes: Use appropriate HTTP status codes to communicate the result of the request.
  • Versioning: Implement API versioning to manage changes without breaking existing integrations.
  • Documentation:
    • Swagger/OpenAPI: Use tools like Swagger for comprehensive API documentation.
    • Endpoint Descriptions: Clearly document all endpoints including path, methods, parameters, and possible responses.
  • Authentication & Security:
    • Implement OAuth, JWT, or similar secure authentication methods.
    • Use HTTPS for all API communications.
  • Rate Limiting: Implement rate limiting to prevent abuse and ensure fair usage.
  • Error Handling:
    • Provide clear, human-readable error messages with corresponding status codes.
    • Implement error logging for debugging purposes.
  • Pagination: For list endpoints, implement pagination to manage large datasets.
  • Validation: Validate input data at the API level to ensure data integrity.
  • CORS: Configure CORS headers if your API is meant to be consumed by web applications from different domains.
  • Monitoring: Set up monitoring for API performance and usage statistics.

Read the full file on GitHub · 49 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 · 49 lines · 602 tokens per session scan A dccbab1b36b8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

api-standards is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository ivangrynenko/cursorrules (87 stars, last pushed 10mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 602 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 2026-08-30.