help

A set of development rules that requires reflection before implementation. It asks the agent to identify gaps, consider likely causes, and clarify unclear requirements first.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps analyse incomplete requests, compare possible approaches, investigate likely root causes, and plan narrowly scoped code changes before implementation.
Why use it?
It reduces premature coding and limits changes to files directly needed for the request. It also keeps alerts aligned with the site's existing design system.

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/waynesutton/markdown-site/help
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/waynesutton/markdown-site

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 161 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 161 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 $0.00161 $0.00161
Opus 5 $0.00081 $0.00081
Sonnet 5 $0.00032 $0.00032
Haiku 4.5 $0.00016 $0.00016

Measured yesterday against content hash 93ab651c78c8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

help 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/help.mdc · 22 lines

What it actually says

Reflect before acting

Before implementing any solution:

  1. Identify what's missing, incomplete, or incorrect based on the original request
  2. Theorize 2-3 possible root causes or approaches
  3. Distill to the 1-2 most probable. Only proceed after clear understanding.

If anything is unclear: ask first. Never assume.

Code confidence: don't write code until 98%+ confident in what needs to be done.

Change scope: only update files directly necessary for the request. Do not change UI, layout, or design unless instructed. Never remove features unless directly requested.

UI alerts: always use the site's existing design system for modals, alerts, and confirmations. Never use browser defaults.

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 · 22 lines · 161 tokens per session scan A 93ab651c78c8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

help is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository waynesutton/markdown-site (631 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 161 tokens to every session, about $0.0008 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 2026-08-30.