cli

A set of rules for implementing command-line tools, which are programs operated by typing commands in a terminal. It covers command naming, options, help text, errors, logs, and JSON output.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when designing or implementing CLI commands, including command groups, short and long options, structured errors, logging, and usage examples.
Why use it?
Command-line interfaces become confusing when commands, parameters, and errors follow inconsistent patterns. These rules make their behavior easier to understand and troubleshoot.

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/willibrandon/netcontextserver/cli
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/willibrandon/NetContextServer

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 481 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
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 $0.00000 $0.00481
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00241
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00096
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00048

Measured yesterday against content hash 822dd749a481, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cli 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/cli.mdc · 55 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 55 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLI Tool Implementation Rules

This rule provides guidance for implementing the Command Line Interface (CLI) for the .NET Codebase Context Server, with specific optimizations for Claude 3.7 Sonnet integration.

AI-Assisted Development

  • Use descriptive XML comments that explain the "why" behind implementation choices
  • Include example usage for each command in code comments
  • Structure commands into logical groups with consistent naming patterns
  • Ensure each command has a clear, single responsibility
  • Add CLI output examples in comments to help Claude understand expected behavior

Command Structure

  • Use verb-noun pattern for all commands (e.g., list-projects, search-code)
  • Implement consistent parameter naming across similar commands
  • Support both short and long option formats for all parameters
  • Include help text that explains parameter relationships and constraints
  • Group related commands into command sets with shared context

Error Handling

  • Return structured JSON responses with error codes and descriptive messages
  • Include targeted troubleshooting guidance in error messages
  • Implement detailed logging with contextual information
  • Add correlation IDs to associate related operations for troubleshooting
  • Handle graceful shutdown for CTRL+C and other interrupts

User Experience

  • Provide colorized, formatted output with clear visual hierarchy
  • Implement progress indicators for long-running operations
  • Support interactive mode for complex operations
  • Add "did you mean?" suggestions for common command typos
  • Include completion scripts for bash/zsh/PowerShell

Documentation

  • Create example-driven documentation with realistic scenarios
  • Document each command with purpose, parameters, examples, and limitations
  • Include troubleshooting sections for common issues
  • Add visual guides showing command relationships and workflows
  • Provide explicit mapping between CLI commands and MCP protocol capabilities

AI Integration Features

  • Add machine-readable JSON output option for all commands
  • Support template-based rendering of results for custom output formats
  • Include metadata in command responses to aid in AI understanding
  • Add descriptive response schemas for Claude to better understand outputs

Read the full file on GitHub · 55 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. yesterday First seen · 55 lines · 481 tokens per session scan A 822dd749a481

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cli is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository willibrandon/NetContextServer (32 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 481 tokens. 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.