What is use-todo-list?

A rule for keeping a TODO.md file as a visible list of pending work, improvements, and known problems.

Use it when managing coding tasks that need tracked priorities, features, technical debt, and progress updates.

It prevents unfinished tasks from being forgotten and requires the current task list to be shown after code changes or status requests.

use-todo-list — Cursor rule for Cursor by jahands

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/jahands/prompts

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/jahands/prompts/use-todo-list.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/jahands/prompts/use-todo-list)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/jahands/prompts/use-todo-list"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/jahands/prompts/use-todo-list.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Per session 15 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.

When invoked 443 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00015	$0.00443
Opus 5	$0.00008	$0.00221
Sonnet 5	$0.00003	$0.00089
Haiku 4.5	$0.00002	$0.00044

Measured 8d ago against content hash 90adacf36e76, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

use-todo-list 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 8d 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/use-todo-list.mdc · 71 lines

What it actually says

Maintain a TODO.md file to track all pending tasks, improvements, and known issues in the codebase

High Priority

Fix authentication bug in login flow (High)
Add error handling for API calls (High)

Features

Implement user profile page (Medium)
Add search functionality (Medium)

Technical Debt

Refactor database queries for better performance (Low)

</format-example>

<update-requirement>
<rule>Always show me the updated TODO.md content after making changes to code or when I ask for project status</rule>
</update-requirement>

<purpose>
<description>This rule ensures the LLM consistently tracks work while providing you with clear visibility into project progress and outstanding tasks</description>
</purpose>

</todo-list-management-rule>

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.

8d ago First seen · 71 lines · 15 tokens per session scan A 90adacf36e76

Subscribe to this mod's changes

use-todo-list is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository jahands/prompts (19 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 15 tokens to every session and 443 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-30.

Project management

slice-tasks

PLANNING SPINE STEP 2 of 3 — Slice the work: break a scoped PRD into vertical-slice stories in specs/epics/. Use after scope-work (step 1), before plan-work (step 3). Not a substitute for scope-work or plan-work.

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iris

GitHub operations specialist — branches, pull requests, issues, releases, tags. Called by zeus after review. Never pushes or merges without explicit human approval. Integrates with VS Code GitHub Pull Requests extension.

ils15/pantheon-legacy · 43 tokens

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Elite orchestrator for mission-critical, enterprise-scale tasks requiring strategic coordination of 7+ agents across all domains. Makes architectural decisions, manages risk, ensures business continuity, and delivers enterprise-grade outcomes. Use for platform migrations, security incidents, multi-system integrations…

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use-todo-list