73-error-handling

A set of rules for handling errors and exceptions in TypeScript, JavaScript, and Python. It covers expected failures, unexpected failures, logging, user messages, error codes, and stack-trace protection.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding error handling, defining custom errors, logging failures, or separating developer diagnostics from user-facing messages.
Why use it?
It helps applications report failures clearly instead of hiding errors or exposing technical details to users.

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/luxvil/ai-coding-rules/73-error-handling
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Luxvil/ai-coding-rules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 281 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00281
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00140
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00056
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00028

Measured yesterday against content hash e64c37a30f54, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

73-error-handling 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to 73-error-handling — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.cursor/rules/73-error-handling.mdc · 49 lines

What it actually says

Error Handling Rules

Philosophy

  • Fail fast, fail loud
  • Errors are values (not just exceptions)
  • Never swallow errors silently
  • Log with context

Patterns

TypeScript/JavaScript

// Prefer Result types for expected failures
type Result<T, E> = { ok: true; value: T } | { ok: false; error: E };

// Use try-catch for unexpected failures
try {
  await riskyOperation();
} catch (error) {
  logger.error('Operation failed', { error, context });
  throw new AppError('USER_FRIENDLY_MESSAGE', { cause: error });
}

Python

# Use specific exceptions
try:
    risky_operation()
except SpecificError as e:
    logger.error("Operation failed", exc_info=True)
    raise AppError("User message") from e

Best Practices

  • Create custom error classes
  • Include error codes for programmatic handling
  • Separate user-facing from developer messages
  • Add correlation IDs for tracing
  • Never expose stack traces to users
  • Log at appropriate levels (error vs warn vs info)
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 · 0 tokens per session scan A e64c37a30f54

Subscribe to this mod's changes

73-error-handling is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository Luxvil/ai-coding-rules (3 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 281 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to 73-error-handling, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.