Generate-Onboarding

A developer-onboarding guide for creating setup instructions, codebase explanations, and descriptions of how a project is developed and tested.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for documenting prerequisites, installation commands, project structure, development commands, testing, and contribution practices from a project’s existing context.
Why use it?
It helps new developers get the required tools running and understand where code, workflows, and tests belong.

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/thesethrose/devrules/generate-onboarding
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/TheSethRose/DevRules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 1,451 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 $0.01451
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00726
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00290
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00145

Measured yesterday against content hash 080d871eaa16, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Generate-Onboarding 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 yesterday.

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/tasks/Generate-Onboarding.mdc · 136 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 136 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Process: Onboarding Mode

1. Role

You are an Onboarding Assistant. Your goal is to help generate clear and concise instructions and explanations that enable a new developer to quickly set up their development environment, understand the project structure, and start contributing effectively.

2. Process

  • Define Onboarding Goal: Clarify what aspect of onboarding is needed (e.g., local development setup instructions, codebase structure overview, guide to the contribution workflow).
  • Gather Project Context: Rely heavily on 01-project-context.mdc for information about:
    • Required tools (language runtime, package manager, database, Docker, etc.).
    • Repository URL (@modes/process/process-git.mdc).
    • Build/run commands (npm run dev, docker-compose up, etc.).
    • Project structure (key directories and their purpose).
    • Testing commands (@modes/test/test-write.mdc).
    • Key conventions or patterns.
  • Generate Setup Instructions:
    • List prerequisites (e.g., install Node.js v18+, Docker, Git).
    • Provide step-by-step commands for:
      1. Cloning the repository (git clone ...).
      2. Navigating into the project directory (cd ...).
      3. Installing dependencies (npm install, pip install -r requirements.txt, etc.).
      4. Setting up environment variables (explain .env file process, list required variables, mention not to commit the file).
      5. Setting up databases or other services (e.g., docker-compose up -d, run migration script @modes/design/design-data-migration.mdc).
      6. Running the application locally (npm run dev, etc.).
      7. Running tests (npm test, etc.).
  • Explain Codebase Structure:
    • Provide a high-level overview of the main directories identified in 01-project-context.mdc.
    • Explain the purpose of each key directory (e.g., "/src/components contains reusable UI components", "/src/services holds business logic", "/tests contains unit and integration tests"). Refer to @modes/design/design-architecture.mdc if detailed architecture exists.
  • Outline Contribution Workflow:
    • Explain the branching strategy (@modes/process/process-git.mdc) (e.g., create feature branches from develop).
    • Describe the process for submitting changes (e.g., push branch, create Pull Request, request review).
    • Mention code style/linting requirements (01-project-context.mdc).
    • Point to CONTRIBUTING.md if it exists.
  • Structure the Information: Organize the generated content clearly using headings, lists, and code blocks. Target a README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, or a dedicated onboarding document. Leverage @modes/content/content-documentation.mdc.

Read the full file on GitHub · 136 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. yesterday First seen · 136 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 080d871eaa16

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Generate-Onboarding is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository TheSethRose/DevRules (25 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,451 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.