Bernstein is an open-source governance layer for AI agents that applies written policies, schedules agent work deterministically, controls approvals, and records verifiable execution history. It is used to coordinate CLI coding agents and other agent workloads, including parallel runs and offline review, while the catalogue entries provide its agent workflows and controls.
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.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernsteinWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/rules/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein/bernstein-context)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein/bernstein-context"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein/bernstein-context/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein/bernstein-context"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein/bernstein-context.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00445 | $0.00445 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00178 | $0.00178 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00089 | $0.00089 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00044 | $0.00044 |
Grade A, and why
bernstein-context 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 1mo 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.
What it actually says
Bernstein Context
You are working in a project managed by Bernstein, the governance layer for AI
agents. Bernstein runs at http://127.0.0.1:8052: a deterministic scheduler runs agents
in parallel, gates what they produce, and records every step. CLI coding agents work out
of the box, one git worktree per task, and the same layer governs any agent workload -
the deliverable can be a diff, a research report, a dataset, or an audit evidence pack.
There is no model in its coordination loop, so the same plan replays to a byte-identical
task graph.
Key concepts
- Tasks have states:
open→claimed→in_progress→done|failed|cancelled|blocked - Agents are short-lived (1-3 tasks each), spawned per task, isolated in git worktrees
- Roles: backend, frontend, qa, security, devops, docs - each agent specializes
- Quality gates: every task goes through lint, type-check, and test verification before completion
- Cost tracking: real-time per-model, per-agent spend with budget enforcement
State lives in files
.sdd/directory contains all orchestrator state (backlog, runtime, metrics, config).sdd/backlog/has task YAML files- Agents are spawned fresh per task - no persistent memory
When you see Bernstein-related requests
Use the /bernstein-status, /bernstein-create-task, /bernstein-approve, or /bernstein-cost skills
to interact with the orchestrator API at http://127.0.0.1:8052.
API base URL
The Bernstein API runs at http://127.0.0.1:8052 by default.
Set the BERNSTEIN_API_URL environment variable to override.
Set BERNSTEIN_API_TOKEN for authenticated setups.
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.
- 1mo ago Changed · +3 lines · +46 tokens per session 7778357ada83
- 1mo ago First seen · 37 lines · 399 tokens per session scan A 589684571676
bernstein-context is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository sipyourdrink-ltd/bernstein (1,273 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 445 tokens to every session, about $0.0018 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
Other cursor rules, from other repositories
checkpoint_management
../../../foundation/.cursor/rules/checkpointmanagement.mdc.
configuration_management
../../../foundation/.cursor/rules/configurationmanagement.mdc.
dependency_installation
../../../foundation/.cursor/rules/dependencyinstallation.mdc.
change_guardrails_rules
../../docs/architecture/changeguardrailsrules.mdc.
architecture_change_guardrails_rules
../../docs/architecture/changeguardrailsrules.mdc.
iris
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