windsurf-rules

A collection of persistent instructions for Windsurf, an AI coding assistant. The rules tell it about project commands, coding preferences, file organization, and other workspace expectations.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps configure how Windsurf builds, tests, deploys, and edits a codebase, using rule files in the project or its parent folders.
Why use it?
It keeps project guidance available across conversations, so developers do not need to repeat the same instructions.

Cursor rule

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/nedcodes-ok/cursorrules-collection/windsurf-rules
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nedcodes-ok/cursorrules-collection
Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 748 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 $0.00748
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00374
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00150
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00075

Measured 2d ago against content hash 646176739447, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

windsurf-rules 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 2d 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.

rules-mdc/ai-tools/windsurf-rules.mdc · 54 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 54 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Windsurf Rules

Windsurf (formerly Codeium) has two customization systems: Rules (persistent context) and Workflows (step-by-step sequences).

Rules (Persistent Context)

  • Current format (Wave 8+): Markdown files in .windsurf/rules/ at the project root. Each file gets a descriptive name and contains rules in plain markdown
  • Legacy format: Single .windsurfrules file at the project root (still supported, but the new format is preferred)
  • Rules provide persistent context to Cascade (Windsurf's AI agent) for every interaction — similar to .cursorrules or CLAUDE.md
  • The GUI provides a visual editor wrapper around the markdown files, but you can edit them directly

Rules Discovery

  • Windsurf searches for .windsurf/rules/ directories in your current workspace, sub-directories, and parent directories up to the Git root
  • When multiple workspaces are open, rules are deduplicated and shown with the shortest relative path
  • Rules files are limited to 12,000 characters each

What Goes In Rules

  • Build, test, and deployment commands
  • Framework and library preferences
  • Coding conventions and style requirements
  • File organization expectations
  • Things Cascade should avoid: "don't modify files in vendor/," "don't use deprecated API v1 endpoints"

Workflows (Step-by-Step Sequences)

  • Markdown files in .windsurf/workflows/ directories
  • Each workflow has a title, description, and a series of steps with specific instructions
  • Invoked via slash command: /[workflow-name] in Cascade
  • Cascade processes each step sequentially — useful for repetitive multi-step processes

Workflow Use Cases

  • Deployment sequences: build → test → deploy → verify
  • PR review processes: check code → run tests → review checklist
  • Environment setup: install deps → configure env → seed database → verify
  • Incident response: check logs → identify issue → apply fix → validate

Workflow Discovery

  • Same directory scanning as rules: current workspace, sub-directories, and up to Git root
  • System-level workflows (Enterprise): placed in OS-specific directories, globally available, admin-controlled
    • macOS: /Library/Application Support/Windsurf/workflows/*.md
    • Linux: /etc/windsurf/workflows/*.md
  • You can ask Cascade to generate workflows for you — describe the process and it creates the markdown file

Read the full file on GitHub · 54 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. 2d ago First seen · 54 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 646176739447

Subscribe to this mod's changes

windsurf-rules is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository nedcodes-ok/cursorrules-collection (37 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 748 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.