agent-context-bootstrap

A rule that suggests setting up written guidance for coding agents when a repository has no AGENTS.md file or .cursor/rules directory. These files explain the codebase and working rules to the agent.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when first learning a codebase, adding AI guidance, reducing repeated context, or creating project rules and skills. It does not apply to narrow code questions or third-party read-only repositories.
Why use it?
Without shared guidance, an agent may spend more time finding its way around the project or use inconsistent practices. The rule points to a setup skill before giving a long orientation answer.

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/varutasu/agent-pipeline/agent-context-bootstrap
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/varutasu/agent-pipeline
Per session 410 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 410 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 $0.00410 $0.00410
Opus 5 $0.00205 $0.00205
Sonnet 5 $0.00082 $0.00082
Haiku 4.5 $0.00041 $0.00041

Measured 2d ago against content hash deb3df52cdd7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

agent-context-bootstrap 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/agent-context-bootstrap.mdc · 32 lines

What it actually says

Agent context bootstrap

If the current workspace has no AGENTS.md at the repo root and no .cursor/rules/ directory, and the user is asking how to orient themselves in this codebase, set up AI guidance, reduce token use, deploy agent context, or scaffold rules and skills, suggest the bootstrap-agent-context skill before answering at length.

Phrase it as a one-line offer:

"This repo doesn't have an AGENTS.md or .cursor/rules/ yet. I can run the bootstrap-agent-context skill to draft them — it detects the stack and stops before committing for your review. Want me to start?"

Then wait for confirmation before reading the skill.

When NOT to suggest

  • The repo already has AGENTS.md or .cursor/rules/*.mdc. (The skill is for first-time setup.)
  • The user is asking a narrow code question that doesn't depend on broad orientation.
  • The user has explicitly declined the bootstrap in this conversation.
  • The repo is clearly read-only or not the user's (vendored, cloned for reference, third-party).

This is a soft nudge, not a hard requirement. If grep + read solves the user's question in one or two calls, do that instead.

If the repo IS already bootstrapped

If the workspace has .agent-context-manifest.yml at the root and the user asks about updates, pipeline version, drift, or out-of-date rules/skills/agents, suggest the sync-agent-context skill instead:

"This repo has an agent-pipeline manifest at version X. I can run the sync-agent-context skill to compare each installed artifact against the latest pipeline source and propose updates per file. Want me to start?"

Same soft-nudge etiquette — skip if the question doesn't depend on freshness.

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 · 32 lines · 410 tokens per session scan A deb3df52cdd7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

agent-context-bootstrap is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository varutasu/agent-pipeline (2 stars, last pushed 23d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 410 tokens to every session, about $0.0020 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.