puppetmaster-workflow

Rules for using Puppetmaster as the default way to coordinate multi-step coding work, while allowing a single worker to handle focused tasks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when deciding whether to start a group of coding workers, investigate a broad problem, perform a multi-file audit, or complete a narrow edit.
Why use it?
They clarify when to delegate work, when to work directly, and how to behave when operating as a Puppetmaster worker.

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/professorpalmer/puppetmaster/puppetmaster-workflow
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/professorpalmer/Puppetmaster

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 2,401 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 2,401 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
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 $0.02401 $0.02401
Opus 5 $0.01201 $0.01201
Sonnet 5 $0.00480 $0.00480
Haiku 4.5 $0.00240 $0.00240

Measured 2d ago against content hash 1ac4d852116f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

puppetmaster-workflow 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/puppetmaster-workflow.mdc · 133 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 133 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

First: are you a Puppetmaster worker?

If your prompt was issued by Puppetmaster, none of the "start a swarm" guidance below applies to you. You are the swarm. Do the analysis or the edit yourself and return the artifacts your prompt asks for.

You are a Puppetmaster worker if your prompt contains a Puppetmaster artifact contract: block, a Role: <role> + Goal: <goal> header, or an instruction to finish by calling submit_findings / submit_report. Workers run as plain agent CLIs with no Puppetmaster MCP tools, so delegating is impossible; attempting it burns the context window and returns a clarifying question instead of findings. Roll your own grep/read loop — that is your job.

The rest of this file addresses an interactive agent working with the user, which does have the MCP tools.

Puppetmaster is the Default Subagent Runtime

When this repo is open — and you are not a Puppetmaster worker (see above) — Puppetmaster's MCP tools are the primary path for fanning out work. Do not roll your own grep/read exploration loops or invoke ad-hoc subagents when a Puppetmaster swarm is available.

When you MUST start a Puppetmaster swarm (no permission needed)

For any user request that involves more than a single trivial change, start a Puppetmaster swarm before spending tokens on your own exploration:

  • Broad repo investigation, audit, or risk analysis ("review this", "find issues", "what could break").
  • Multi-file refactors, migrations, or cross-cutting cleanups.
  • Debugging that requires tracing call graphs, data flow, or test coverage across multiple files.
  • Planning the next implementation slice when scope or risks are unclear.
  • Comparing approaches, surfacing trade-offs, or producing decision artifacts.

The default routing is:

  1. Call puppetmaster_start_cursor_swarm (read-only multi-role analysis) — this is the daily-driver entry point.
  2. For implementation that needs durable patches, logs, and dirty-tree guards, use puppetmaster_start_implement in a clean worktree — it routes to whatever platform the lock enables (cursor preferred, then claude-code). puppetmaster_start_cursor_implement / puppetmaster_start_claude_implement force a specific platform.
  3. For a single fast review or plan pass, puppetmaster_start_cursor_review / puppetmaster_start_cursor_plan are acceptable lighter alternatives.

Read the full file on GitHub · 133 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 · 133 lines · 2,401 tokens per session scan A 1ac4d852116f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

puppetmaster-workflow is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository professorpalmer/Puppetmaster (349 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,401 tokens to every session, about $0.0120 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.