general-coding-principles

A general set of software design rules covering ideas such as avoiding repetition, keeping code simple, delaying unnecessary features, and improving code while working on it.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when writing or reviewing any project file, especially when deciding whether to extract shared code, add an abstraction, optimize, or introduce a new feature.
Why use it?
It helps prevent needless complexity and makes code easier for another developer to understand and maintain.

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/toptalentcoder/cursor-awesomerules/general-coding-principles
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/toptalentcoder/Cursor-AwesomeRules
Per session 182 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 182 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00182 $0.00182
Opus 5 $0.00091 $0.00091
Sonnet 5 $0.00036 $0.00036
Haiku 4.5 $0.00018 $0.00018

Measured 2d ago against content hash ff22fb3c771c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

general-coding-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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to general-coding-principles — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

rules/angular-novo-elements-cursorrules-prompt-file/general-coding-principles.mdc · 12 lines

What it actually says


description: Applies fundamental coding principles like DRY, KISS, YAGNI, and the Boy Scout Rule to all files in the project. globs: **/.

  • Adhere to DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle by creating functions and classes for code reuse.
  • Follow Curly's Law: Ensure each entity (class, function, variable) has one clear purpose.
  • Apply KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle to maintain simplicity and avoid unnecessary complexity.
  • Implement YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It): Avoid implementing features until they are actually needed.
  • Refrain from premature optimization; focus on critical areas.
  • Apply the Boy Scout Rule: Always leave the code better than you found it.
  • Code for the maintainer, considering long-term maintainability.
  • Follow the Principle of Least Astonishment; code should behave as expected.
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 · 12 lines · 182 tokens per session scan A ff22fb3c771c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

general-coding-principles is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository toptalentcoder/Cursor-AwesomeRules (6 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed CC0-1.0. It adds 182 tokens to every session, about $0.0009 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to general-coding-principles, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.