change-request-analysis

A rule set requiring a feature to be understood and documented before production or test code is written. A feature can be new behavior, an API, a user interface route, or a data-schema change.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding behavior, changing multiple packages, or fixing bugs with wider effects; simple typos, comments, formatting, and documentation-only edits are excluded.
Why use it?
It prevents implementation from starting before the change, its effects, and its architecture have been considered.

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/vepo/issues/change-request-analysis
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/vepo/issues

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 1,843 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,843 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 $0.01843 $0.01843
Opus 5 $0.00922 $0.00922
Sonnet 5 $0.00369 $0.00369
Haiku 4.5 $0.00184 $0.00184

Measured 2d ago against content hash c97de5a35753, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

change-request-analysis 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.

.cursor/rules/change-request-analysis.mdc · 120 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 120 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Feature analysis (phase 1)

Part of the mandatory development-process.mdc. Do not write production or test code until phases 1–4 are complete for the current changelog entry.

Answering feature questions (FQn) updates the feature doc only — it is not development approval. Each answer triggers a mandatory impact review — see development-process.mdc § Impact review when answering open questions.

After phase 1, every feature change proceeds to phase 2 (architecture design) — architecture-design.mdc.

Template: feature/README.md.

When required

Trigger Analysis required
New behaviour, API, UI route, schema Yes — create or extend feature/<feature-slug>.md
Refactor touching multiple packages or bounded contexts Yes
Bug fix with cross-feature side effects Yes — append changelog entry
Typo, comment-only, formatter, docs-only (no behaviour) No — exempt from full process

When feature analysis is required, architecture design (phase 2) is also required — no exceptions.

Process

0. Resolve <feature-slug> (before creating the file)

The slug names a high-level capability or user-facing feature, not a single task or implementation step.

Good (capability) Bad (task or implementation)
ticket-import fix-csv-parser-bug
account-settings add-password-field-validation
kanban-board refactor-drag-drop-handler

Extract the slug

  1. Name the capability — what product area or feature-catalog row does this belong to? (e.g. Import tickets, Account settings, Kanban board).
  2. Derive slug — 2–4 words, kebab-case, noun phrase; align with feature-catalog.md feature names or bounded context when possible.
  3. Search for a related feature doc — before creating a new file:
  4. Decide

Read the full file on GitHub · 120 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. 2d ago First seen · 120 lines · 1,843 tokens per session scan A c97de5a35753

Subscribe to this mod's changes

change-request-analysis is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository vepo/issues (8 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 1,843 tokens to every session, about $0.0092 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.