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.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xc404/kiwiWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/rules/xc404/kiwi/read-before-edit)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/xc404/kiwi/read-before-edit"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/xc404/kiwi/read-before-edit/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/xc404/kiwi/read-before-edit"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/xc404/kiwi/read-before-edit.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00457 | $0.00457 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00183 | $0.00183 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00091 | $0.00091 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00046 | $0.00046 |
Grade A, and why
read-before-edit 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 1mo 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.
What it actually says
修改前同步工作区（避免覆盖）
原则
- 工作区磁盘上的文件是唯一真相；对话里缓存的代码片段、上一轮 tool 输出、或记忆中的版本都可能落后于用户在外部保存的改动。
- assistant 在修改任意文件之前，必须先拿到「当前将要写入的最终版本」，再基于该版本做最小差异编辑；不得仅凭会话上下文拼补丁。
必须执行的操作
- 在每次
apply_patch/ 实质性编辑之前，对目标路径使用 Read 工具重新读取文件全文或足够大的局部（含待改片段的上下文），以当前内容作为old_string/ 补丁基准。 - 若用户说明「已在外部改过」「与磁盘不一致」或涉及多人/多轮并行修改：对受影响路径再读一遍；必要时在仓库根目录执行
git diff -- <path>（或git diff）查看相对版本库的未提交差异，再合并意图。 - 若 Read 结果与对话中的假设不一致，以 Read 为准，并在回复中简要说明已按最新文件调整（无需长篇）。
禁止
- 在未重新 Read 目标文件的情况下，用大段替换「还原」助手记忆中的旧版本。
- 用过时行号或过时引用块作为补丁依据（行号会变；应以 Read 返回的当前文本为准）。
说明
「当前 session 的最终版本」在工程上等同于：用户已保存到工作区的文件；通过 Read（及可选 git diff）与之对齐，即完成与「外部改动」的 diff，避免覆盖。
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 27 lines · 457 tokens per session scan A 30f68316a4dc
read-before-edit is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository xc404/kiwi (7 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 457 tokens to every session, about $0.0018 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
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