cursor-tools-discipline

cursor-tools-discipline is a cursor rule for Cursor from madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules. It costs 23 tokens per session (1,483 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A set of rules for choosing coding tools deliberately, such as file readers, search tools, shell commands, or separate agents.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when reading or editing files, searching code, running commands, calling external tool servers, delegating research, or checking a user interface.
Why use it?
It reduces noisy output, guessed tool inputs, unnecessary work, and unsupported results by matching each task with the right tool and evidence.

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/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules/cursor-tools-discipline
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules

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 cursor-tools-discipline

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules/cursor-tools-discipline.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules/cursor-tools-discipline)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules/cursor-tools-discipline"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules/cursor-tools-discipline.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,483 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
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 $0.00023 $0.01483
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00741
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00297
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00148

Measured 4d ago against content hash c0161e321359, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

cursor-tools-discipline 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 4d 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.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

- Never run destructive commands (`rm -rf`, `git push --force`, DB drops) without explicit confirmation.
.cursor/rules/cursor-tools-discipline.mdc · 126 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 126 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Cursor tools discipline

Tools are how you turn intent into evidence. Use them the way a senior engineer uses a debugger: deliberately, in the right order, and never as a substitute for reading.

Pick the right tool

Job Right tool Wrong tool
Read a file structured file reader cat, head, tail in shell
Find files by name glob find, ls -R
Search code by content ripgrep / grep tool grep in shell, full-file scans
Edit a file structured edit tool sed, awk, heredoc redirects
Run a command shell file tools
Hit an MCP server the MCP tool, after reading its schema guessing parameters
Heavy codebase search built-in Explore subagent or parallel grep — parent keeps summary only reading dozens of files sequentially in parent
Long or noisy shell output built-in Bash subagent or background shell pasting full logs into the user message
UI / browser verification built-in Browser subagent; cite snapshot or screenshot evidence "looks fine in the diff"
Specialist isolated work Task / subagent with full prompt + return shape vague "help me with this" delegation

Prefer structured file tools over shell for read/search/edit. Using the wrong tool wastes the user's tokens and produces worse results.

Parallelize independent work

Run independent discovery in parallel: multiple file reads, unrelated searches, web lookups that don't depend on each other. Send them in one batch, not sequentially.

Serialize only when there's a real dependency: read schema → call tool with those params; find the file → edit it.

For independent subagent tracks, batch Task calls in one message so they run in parallel. See composer-orchestration for when to delegate.

Investigate progressively

Don't read megabytes when you need kilobytes. The default order:

  1. Orient — list directory or glob the relevant area.
  2. Find — search by symbol, identifier, or error message.
  3. Read — open the specific file or function the search pointed to.
  4. Read more — only when the first read leaves a real question open.

Read the full file on GitHub · 126 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. 4d ago First seen · 126 lines · 23 tokens per session scan C c0161e321359

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cursor-tools-discipline is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository madebyaris/cursor-composer-rules (3 stars, last pushed 16d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 1,483 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.