05-retrieval

A rule for retrieving information from a local search index instead of reopening large documents. It also says to reuse cached measurements and command output when they are still valid.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to query indexed guidance, check drafts against stored rules, reuse prior measurements, and update the index after changing memory files.
Why use it?
It reduces repeated reading, re-running, and recalculating in a large code or research workspace, saving time and context.

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/xclaw-bot/benchmark-task-authoring/05-retrieval
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Xclaw-bot/benchmark-task-authoring

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 546 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 546 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 $0.00546 $0.00546
Opus 5 $0.00273 $0.00273
Sonnet 5 $0.00109 $0.00109
Haiku 4.5 $0.00055 $0.00055

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8a9bac59b1eb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

05-retrieval 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/05-retrieval.mdc · 51 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 51 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.


description: Retrieve from the local index instead of re-reading long documents. alwaysApply: true

Retrieve, do not re-read

The the corpus is ~193k tokens across 49 files. Re-reading a war-chest to re-extract a law is the single largest avoidable token cost in this workspace, and it scales with every slot shipped.

Before opening any of ../hardness-laws.md, a <task-repo>.md memory file, ../hardness-laws.md, or a past proposal-*.md — query the index.

python scripts/dr.py boot                    # session start (~3k tok, replaces ~18k)
python scripts/dr.py ask "<question>"        # ~1-2k tok, <1s, cited
python scripts/dr.py ask "<q>" --task <hash> --klass law --budget 1200
python scripts/dr.py check <proposal.md>     # laws a draft is likely breaking
python scripts/dr.py laws --write            # regenerate the distilled deck

Every returned card cites a real file:line (verified 40/40). Opening that file to read around a card you were given is a targeted read and is fine. Opening a file to search it is the thing to stop doing.

Run dr.py index after any memory write — incremental, ~1s.

Cache measurements, never re-derive or re-run them

Standing rule: never fabricate a measurement. The cache is how you keep that rule cheaply — a stored result is fingerprinted against the tree that produced it, and get fails with exit 4 if that tree has changed since.

# store: pipe the command's output straight in
python preflight.py <task-dir> 2>&1 | \
  python scripts/dr.py cache put preflight-<hash> --stdin --watch <task-dir>

# reuse, or re-run if missing (3) or stale (4)
python scripts/dr.py cache get preflight-<hash> --watch <task-dir> \
  || python preflight.py <task-dir>

python scripts/dr.py cache list

Cache preflight output, probe solve rates, timeout-probe wall clocks, oracle/nop rewards. A STALE result is a signal to re-run, never to quote the old number. Always pass --watch: without it nothing is verified, and the tool will say so.

Read the full file on GitHub · 51 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 · 51 lines · 546 tokens per session scan A 8a9bac59b1eb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

05-retrieval is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository Xclaw-bot/benchmark-task-authoring (2 stars, last pushed 18d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 546 tokens to every session, about $0.0027 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.