numbered-replies

A conversation rule for matching numbered replies to numbered questions by position. It also treats brief answers and skipped numbers as intentional choices.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when asking several numbered questions and processing replies such as “1. yes” or “2. option B.”
Why use it?
It removes the need to ask users which question their short answer belongs to. It makes multi-question clarification faster to interpret.

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/tonyghiani/ai-essentials/numbered-replies
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tonyghiani/ai-essentials
Per session 478 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 478 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 $0.00478 $0.00478
Opus 5 $0.00239 $0.00239
Sonnet 5 $0.00096 $0.00096
Haiku 4.5 $0.00048 $0.00048

Measured 2d ago against content hash a5578edd769b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

numbered-replies 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/numbered-replies.mdc · 48 lines

What it actually says

Numbered Replies

When you ask the user a numbered list of questions, expect a numbered reply where each number corresponds to your question of the same number.

How to interpret

  • A reply starting with 1. (or 1) or just a list of bullets in order) maps to your questions by index.
  • Do not ask the user to disambiguate which answer goes with which question — the index does that.
  • Short answers are intentional and complete:
    • Out of scope — that aspect is not being addressed
    • Same flag — keep the existing flag, no change
    • b or option B — picked the lettered choice you offered
    • keep it / drop it / as-is — accept whatever defaults you proposed
  • Missing numbers mean "no change / skip". Don't re-ask.
  • If the user reorders items, match by content not by position. If ambiguous, ask one targeted question.

How to ask questions to invite this format

When you have multiple questions, present them as a numbered list. Keep each question short and answerable in one phrase:

1. Should we keep behavior X or change to Y?
2. What's the timeout — 30s, 60s, or other?
3. Edge case: empty input — error, default, or skip?

Not this:

I have a few things I'd like to ask you about. First, regarding behavior X,
should we keep it or change it to Y? Then there's the question of timeout,
which I'm thinking should be 30 seconds but could be 60 — what do you think?
Also, what should we do for empty input?

The numbered format lets the user answer in one short turn instead of writing a paragraph.

When NOT to use this format

  • Single question — just ask it directly.
  • Open-ended exploration ("what do you think about X?") — let the user answer freely.
  • Yes/no on a single decision — use a structured multiple-choice prompt if your tool supports one; otherwise ask directly.
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 · 48 lines · 478 tokens per session scan A a5578edd769b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

numbered-replies is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository tonyghiani/ai-essentials (6 stars, last pushed 24d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 478 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 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.