general_clean_code_principles

A set of general clean-code guidelines for making source code easier to read and maintain. It recommends small focused functions, meaningful names, limited nesting, short parameter lists, and removing duplication.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when designing or reviewing classes, functions, and files in any programming language, especially when code is becoming hard to follow.
Why use it?
It reduces the effort needed to understand, change, and review code. It also helps prevent large functions, repeated logic, and leftover commented-out code from accumulating.

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/nphausg/ai-agent-skills/general_clean_code_principles
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nphausg/ai-agent-skills

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 6 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 87 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 $0.00006 $0.00087
Opus 5 $0.00003 $0.00044
Sonnet 5 $0.00001 $0.00017
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00009

Measured 2d ago against content hash e4a10d115a2e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

general_clean_code_principles 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.

.cursor/rules/general_clean_code_principles.mdc · 13 lines

What it actually says

  • Keep functions small and focused
  • One class per file
  • Limit function size to 20 lines if possible
  • Avoid long parameter lists (max 3–4 parameters)
  • Minimize nested control structures
  • Remove commented-out code before committing
  • Prefer meaningful names over comments
  • DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself): extract duplication
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 · 13 lines · 6 tokens per session scan A e4a10d115a2e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

general_clean_code_principles is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository nphausg/ai-agent-skills (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 6 tokens to every session and 87 once invoked, about $0.0000 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 2026-08-31.